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April 08, 2005
McDonald's just got served
In another example of shortcut marketing, McDonald's recently launched a new campaign to pay rappers a bounty if they name-drop the Big Mac in their songs. Rappers can earn $1-5 each time their song is played on the radio.
A spokesperson for the product placement firm hired by McDonald's says the burger chain will have final approval of lyrics.
Enter the Big Mac-laden rap song, "McGangsta" from the fictitious rap group Gatbustaz. [WARNING: listen to this profanity-laden song at your own risk.]
This parody of a specious marketing idea references a good deal of the McDonald's menu, interspersed with funny references to guns, gangstas, ho's, bitches, the n-word, and too many variations of the f-word to count.
Lesson here: If you're trying to buy cool, you're trying too hard.
Today's democratization of technology and ease of distribution lets ordinary citizens create media that will market companies more authentically than paid placements. Instead of a contrived paid placement, which engenders low trust, McDonald's sponsoring an open-mic contest for customers would have been more believable. Let customers create their own songs about the global burger server, with the winner(s) featured in forthcoming campaigns.
Customers could decide a winner via web-based voting, not a corporate committee of middle-aged white executives determining what fits best with the company "image." That's more authentic and buzzworthy. Pre-contest guidelines are less mockable than a bounty system.
Instead, McDonald's just got served. And I bet they ain't lovin' it.
Other blogs that reference McDonald's just got served:
» McDonalds gets served - and I'm loving it from customer experience strategy, experience design, interactive marketing by Karl Long
church of the customer has just noted how McDonalds came shot itself in the foot, or more appropriately, capped itself in the ass by coming up with a campaign that would pay rappers to mention Big Mac's in their songs.
Maven Strategies, who pitche... [Read More]
