McDonald’s and Activists: Countdown to Turin
1October 26, 2005 by Colin
Attention food fanatics, anti-fatties, French epicures, anti-capitalists, the nutritionally obsessed and Morgan Spurlock: you have nearly four months to develop an anti-McDonald’s campaign based on their new nutritional information charts.
I may be biased, but I seem to have a thing for nutritional charts … and design. McDonald’s has developed new burger wrappers and packaging to communicate nutritional information, broken down per serving as well as a percentage of daily recommended allowances.
Initially, the design will roll out in several test markets, finally being launched in February at the booths in Turin for the 2006 Olympics.
There’s plenty of time between now and February 10, 2006 for your activist cell to plan, for a real opportunity exists to seize some valuable media real estate during the final launch of the design and accompanying packaging – with all eyes of the world upon you.
McDonald’s will only be supporting the new materials in-store and on the web – which means there will be a veritable print and visual vacuum for you to fill with redesigned charts, poorly imitated Hamburglar costumes, disillusioned McDonald’s employees from the test markets, near-sighted parents who didn’t know the caesar salad (with chicken, dressing and croutons) had 24 grams of fat, and the crazed Italian bistro owners driven bankrupt by corporate facilities sanctioned by the Olympic Committee.
But you better act quickly, because there’s sure to be some brand managers – outbid by their competitiors for Olympic sponsorship rights – drawing up their their ambush marketing tactics. Lord knows, your flash mob demonstration just won’t work if your grain-fed activists get waylaid at a food sampling station just outside the Olympic Village.



Colin,
Great post! I’ll be featuring it on Tuesday’s “Much Ado About Marketing” blog.
Keep up the good work.
Regards,
Mike Bawden
Brand Central Station