Advertising Campaign of McDonald's: Communicative Aspect - Essay Example

 ‘I’m lovin’ it’ advertising campaign of McDonald’s: the communicative aspect A) Introduction The leading position of McDonald’s chain of fast food restaurants on the world market is not determined but what it sells (i.e. the product), moreover, this particular product itself has more of a negative influence on the public perception of the company. It is important how McDonald’s sells its junk food – including creating the company’s legend and style, enhancing image and brand, and using effective advertising techniques. B) ‘I’m lovin’ it’ advertising campaign of McDonald’s: general overview There is a kind of rule in the industry of advertising that brand’s positioning should undergo at least slight changes every three – five years. Throughout the last several years, McDonald’s has actually had two re-branding campaigns that were conditioned by the changing situation on the market and social issues. First of all, there was a rapid upsurge of public interest to the healthy lifestyle, and together with this tendency there was one more – McDonald’s was gradually becoming a symbol of unhealthy eating that causes problems with health and obesity (that is, the symbol with rather negative connotations). At the end of the XXth century, Atkin’s Diet gained a great amount of adherents, and it also affected the reputation of the fast-food giant, as people were becoming increasingly more concerned as for the volume of fat and carbohydrates, and in number of calories in their everyday meals, and surely, Big Macs, hamburgers, soft drinks with lots of sugar and French fries proved to be ‘champions’ as far as the content of ‘bad’ calories was concerned. Though the companies that were competing with McDonald’s (such as Pizza Hut, Burger King or Taco Bell) could not boast to serve healthier food, yet because McDonald’s was the most popular chain of fast food restaurants, it played a trick on the company making it a ‘collective’ symbol embodying all the negative sides of eating junk. It cannot be overlooked that with the world’s businesses becoming global and the emergence of various anti-global movements that blame multinational corporations for exploiting people and affecting the economy of the developing countries, McDonald’s has also become a symbol of ‘the world’s corporate evil’ that attempts to ‘catch’ the entire planet into its ‘vicious net’. In 2002, the American president G.W. Bush started an anti-obesity campaign that included propagating healthy food among schoolchildren and their parents, and in the course of this campaign the direct connection between eating junk food and obesity was being pinpointed. As a result, there was a significant decrease in the number of McDonald’s customers, and many of its restaurants were closed. It was also stressed that there had been a decrease in the number of young people visiting McDonald’s, and as soon as the company’s analysts noticed that the ratio of teenagers and young people among their customers was decreasing, ‘I’m lovin’ it’ advertising campaign was launched. Taking into account all the above said, this new advertising campaign was meant to enhance the image of McDonald’s so that to deal with the crisis the company found itself in. In contrast to the 2001-2002 campaign that targeted mainly children and family audiences (‘Happy Meal’, Ronald McDonald, playgrounds for children, toys, balloons, birthday parties etc.), the new global task for McDonald’s was to attract young people and teenagers. McDonald’s advertising campaign whose slogan has become ‘I’m lovin’ it’ was launched in 2003, and proved to be a significant breakthrough as far as the company’s branding is concerned. This slogan proved so successful that the company decided to stick to it for quite a long while. In fact, the company paid the advertising agencies (Leo Burnett from Publicis Groupe and DDB from Omnicom Group) around $700 billion in 2003 only. The upheaval that the new advertising campaign, and in particular the new slogan, caused to the company’s activity, was especially notable in the USA. Together with introducing new products into the menu that can be regarded as healthy food, the new slogan ‘I’m lovin’ it’ was used. The advertising campaign targeted predominantly children, teenagers, and the adherents of healthy way of life. The new McDonald’s campaign has become, perhaps, the most spoken-of change of strategy in 2003, and the reason for it was that the sales began to fall dramatically. In fact, the company had to reconsider its entire marketing strategy, not only introduce the new slogan, but this slogan has become a reflection of this new strategy and the new way of life propagated by the Empire of Ronald McDonald. ‘I’m lovin’ it’ advertising campaign was common for all countries that McDonald’s operates present in. It is considered to be effectively adaptable to all the world markets of fast food, and therefore in all countries it has the same range of themes, as well as audio and visual effects. (visual metonyms from the lecture) At the very beginning of the development of this new campaign there was the question concerning the differences between the countries, however it was decided by the managers of McDonald’s that the image of the company as depicted by the new advertisements and commercials would contribute to a better realization of the company’s global marketing strategy and achieving its long-term goals. C) Advertising techniques in ‘I’m lovin’ it’ campaign: the communicative aspect Let us now consider how different communicative techniques are used to influence people’s attitude to McDonald’s in the new ‘I’m lovin’ it’ advertising campaign. We will consider here the slogan itself, as well as other constituents of the company’s advertisements and commercials. 1. Company’s brand and image and their reflection in the advertisement Before gaining recognition among the potential customers and creating an advertisement itself, McDonald’s had to create its own image, which is a long and complicated process. Recognition being a crucial part of corporate brand, as well as the brand of the product McDonald’s offers to its customers, it is important that it appeals not only to emotions of consumers but also their reason (Root 1987), as the true recognition should be based upon objective loyalty and particular positive features of the evaluated company or brand. For McDonald’s who had had a problem of significant decrease of sales, and for whom sustainability therefore became a major goal, launching an utterly new advertising campaign was a necessity. Its aim was to attract and retain new customers, as well as employees (because one of the factors influencing the staff’s loyalty is powerful brand and company’s positive image on the market) and partners (since McDonald’s actively expands abroad using franchising). Wall Street Journal named McDonald’s among the two the most recognisable brands in the world, together with Microsoft; however being widely known does not necessarily mean good attitude on the part of the customers. Despite of the fact that McDonald’s is known by practically everyone, its reputation is not really good, especially in Europe as it is traditionally perceived by people as the main agent of selling junk food that causes health problems and obesity. However, as the brand of McDonald’s is very powerful and recognisable, this advantage was efficiently used in the company’s advertisements and commercials. According to the principles of human psychology, the reaction of the brain to the names of brands is different from the reaction to “simple” words of the language. D. Chandler pinpointed that ‘most of the words are “lexical words” (or nouns) which refer to “things”, but most of these things are abstract concepts rather than physical objects in the world’ (2002, p. 56); however as far as the brand names are concerned, they are not accepted as merely words, and it is even claimed that whereas in case of hearing the words of the language, the left hemisphere of the brain is working, when a person hears the brand name, the right hemisphere is activated which is responsible for emotions. (Gontijo et. al 2002) Therefore, it is quite possible to say that brands are able to convey a much broader range of ideas than simple words. The company can only gain recognition if it demonstrates certain positive features to the people, and these features are not only connected with the product that is being sold, but also with the corresponding activities, such as social responsibility. Especially topical social activity is for the companies that are traditionally considered dangerous for the environment or health (oil industry, tobacco and alcohol production, and, of course, fast-food business). Socially-oriented policy helps smooth the negative attitude on the part of society that is caused by the company’s causing damage to health – it is a sort of ‘compensation’ for the damage done. It is important to emphasize, however, that McDonald’s, together with propagating healthy lifestyle in its ‘I’m lovin’ it’ advertising campaign, actually introduced salads, juices, fruit and vegetables into its menus. In the sphere of advertising, sales and marketing, the image of McDonald’s has been established as a sample of quality, cleanness and high consumer value. The pictures and statues of the Clown Ronald McDonald have been used in order to increase the popularity of the fast food restaurants among children. McDonald’s has also introduced a prefix “Mc-“ into the names of practically all the main dishes that its serves, and this allows to make the company recognisable all over the world. The examples of this are Big Mac, Egg McMuffin and many other dishes, all together ironically called ‘McDiet’by the nutritionists. This, by the way, was wittily mocked by Morgan Spurlock in his ‘Super Size Me’ scandalous documentary film (it shows the experiment of the young man who had been eating exclusively in McDonald’s restaurants during a period of one month, having super size meals now and then (provided that the salespeople proposed them to him), and who eventually turned from an absolutely healthy man into a fatty guy having problems with kidneys, blood sugar and cholesterol level, liver and other organs (Smith, N., 2005)), as he derived words with ‘Mc-’ prefix that had a negative and ironic meaning: ‘See, now's the time of the meal when you start getting the McStomachache. You start getting the McTummy. You get the McGurgles in there. You get the McBrick. And then you get the McStomachache. Right now I got some McGas that’s rockin’. My arms – I feel like I got some McSweats going. My arms got the McTwitches going in here. I’m feeling a little McCrazy’. 2. ‘I’m lovin’ it’ – the slogan of the advertising campaign Even the most successful and powerful brand needs a good slogan. Slogan is a kind of advertising formula that serves as a verbal image of a company. It helps formulate the first (and therefore the most powerful impression) of the brand, and therefore it should be laconic and send the right message. It is very important to find the right words for the slogan, as expressing even the most alluring ideas and thoughts in wrong words would be a complete failure. As Lemke has it: ‘One of the most basic functions of language is to create interpersonal relationships between speakers and addressees through the way text is worded’ – and this rule can rightfully be applied to slogans and advertisements. (lecture handout) As it has already been mentioned, the new advertising campaign of McDonald’s targets youth rather than the family audience as it had done before, and moreover it aims to ‘clean’ the company from the label of the main source of unhealthy food. Therefore, the new slogan, of the company, as well as other advertising elements, are meant to make people forget all that they had known about McDonald’s before, and make them discover new sides of it. It is important to take into account that the slogan ‘I’m lovin’ it’ was meant to make McDonald’s brand alluring, since the company had already been recognisable by the customers. For an advertisement in general and a slogan in particular, it is important to be unique (it helps differentiate the company from its competitors on the market) and topical (that is, reflect the needs and desires of the consumers). As far as ‘I’m lovin’ it’ slogan is concerned, the melody that has been chosen for it is very popular among the teenagers, and it has become one of the most popular ringtones for cellular phones. The fact of the company’s being recognised on the market is connected with its popularity, and using in the slogan the verb denoting a strong degree of positive emotional attitude (‘to love’) reflects one of the most popular among powerful companies communication trends: to announce to the world the position of being a strong and publicly recognised corporation. McDonald’s slogan is very illustrative of the company’s long-term strategy – it does not only aim at increasing sales or profit, but mostly at enhancing its image, and therefore it is directed at preserving the company’s leadership position. The ‘self-praising’ aspect of McDonald’s advertisement is two-fold. On the one hand, McDonald’s states in its advertisement that it has already been recognised, and on the other hand, communicating its recognition, the company signals to the customers, partners and employees that they are worth trusting and… recognising. The reasons for this are obvious – the heated competition on the market and the necessity to stand out from the competitors forces McDonald’s to remind the community that they are still powerful; apart from that there have been a lot of bad publicity that resulted in labelling the fast-food company as the main reason of the USA citizens’ high obesity rate (Morgan Spurlock and his ‘Super Size Me’ scandalous movie); and finally, positive attitude can ensure that the company’s staff truly believes in their being the best, as this ‘psychology of the leader’ can be elaborated and maintained. The slogan evokes associations with food, due to it’s ambiguity (the handout from lectures): the word ‘it’ is a homophone of the word ‘eat’, which, in fact, goes in line with the company’s practice to make people eat more (since we do not analyse ethical aspects in this essay but only concentrate on how effective the advertisement is, it can be stated with a great degree of certainty that the slogan is very efficient). The opponents of junk food in general and McDonald’s in particular use the company’s slogan for creating puns, the most popular being the statement that while creating ‘I’m lovin’ it’ slogan, two letters were lost – ‘s’ and ‘h’. 3. Advertisements and commercials McDonald’s global marketing campaign is based on propagating sport, healthy way of life and, of course, balanced diet, and the motto of this campaign is ‘It’s what I eat and what I do’. Apart from attracting customers, the fast-food company is trying to protect itself from the healthcare organisations that blame McDonald’s in the epidemic of child obesity – a real plague in the USA and some West-European countries. McDonald’s commercials featured Venus and Serena Williams, as well as other famous sportsmen, and state that the company was a partner of the Olympic Games. A key to the success of McDonald’s advertising campaign is the balanced use of several channels of perception: words, music, graphic images, films, and even smell. In the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ advertisement the company uses hip-hop (easily remembered and very effective as far as its influence upon the conscious and unconscious levels of mind is concerned), and of course the visual signs (plots of commercials) are very effective as they correspond to the overall ‘drive’ of the advertisement and the ideas it conveys. McDonald’s ‘I’m lovin’ it’ commercials do not show food at all, - the idea is to show people in movement, their dynamic lives and excellent mood. This attitude partially allows the company to wash their hands of many people’s gaining weight, as it sends a definite message: ‘Everything depends on the people themselves and their lifestyle. Stop blaming fast-food restaurants, and lead an active life!’ McDonald’s uses its famous ‘M’ as a symbol that represents the company as a whole (handout of lectures), and though the company’s ‘I’m lovin’ it’ advertisements and commercials do not even mention food, this symbol of McDonald’s looms at the background naturally evokes thoughts about the referent. The company being generally known and easily recognisable, the ‘M’ sign has long ago become a stimulus that causes thoughts of fast food (a response), (handout of lectures) and because of this McDonald’s can easily skip mentioning food in their advertisements. It is vital that the company have authoritative support on the part of a person or people whose opinion matters for the target audience. McDonald’s new ‘I’m lovin’ it!’ commercials were recorded by Justin Timberlake, and the music and the refrain were taken from the singer’s popular song which was a successful solution as it made people remember the commercial better. Since Justin Timberlake is extremely popular among the young people, they tend to like the company’s ‘I’m lovin’ it’ commercials and advertisements. Apart from that, this creates the so-called ‘anchor effect’ (the term used in NLP) – on hearing Justin’s source song now, everybody will remember McDonald’s. From the three types of appeal singled out by R. Root (1987, p. 51), perhaps the strongest one here is the pathetic appeal that enhances the viewer’s concept of his or her own self as an independent and free person. There is obviously a powerful appeal to emotions: McDonald’s targeting young audience reveals itself in the ‘rebellious’ character of ‘I’m lovin’ it’ advertisements: they send a message that contradicts and opposes the ‘adult’ view on the fast food: ‘You [the grown-ups] say the food in McDonald’s in unhealthy and junky, but I’m lovin’ it!’ ‘Mum says I have to eat home-made meals, but… “Is this the place to eat? Since I don't cook, I’ll just rock to the beat!”’. This adult outlook is contrasted to the active lifestyle that naturally evokes associations with freedom – and that is what the majority of young people want. McDonald’s is not only ‘their’ world where adults do not really belong – apart from that, McDonald’s is their free choice that they are often deprived of in everyday life. Buying McDonald’s, the customers are virtually buying into the idea of ‘the American lifestyle’ (the presentation in Power Point), perhaps even the famous ‘American Dream’ therefore the new advertising campaign tried to enhance and polish this idea so that to make it alluring to its clients. The American lifestyle is shown as active and dynamic, as well as independent and giving vast opportunities for development and self-expression. The connotations evoked by McDonald’s advertisement are therefore freedom, democracy, independence, youth, and unlimited opportunities for everyone (the latter concept is core to the American Dream which, though has been strictly criticised by many, still exists in the minds of people). (the presentation in Power Point) D) Conclusion All in all, McDonald’s advertisements and commercials that are part of the company’s ‘I’m lovin’ it!’ advertising campaign can be regarded as quite effective, because the communication techniques used in these ads correspond to the needs and peculiarities of the target audience (young people). References 1. Chandler, D. (2002) Semiotics: the basics, Routledge, London. 2. Gontijo, P. F.D., Rayman, J., Zhang, S. & Zaidela, E. (2002), “How brand names are special: brands, words, and hemispheres”, Brain and language, 82, 327–343. 3. Root, R.L. (1987), The rhetorics of popular culture: advertising, advocacy, and entertainment, Greenwood Press, New York. 4. Smith, N. (2005, April 14), “Documentary relives McLibel trial Thursday”. BBC news. Retrieved on March 11, 2007 from: 5. Global McDonald’s commercial, (2003). Retrieved on March 17, 2007 from: Read More