McDonald’s FREE Publicity at the Expense of
Pit Bulls By Lois Crockett A recent McDonald’s ad, aired on radio in the Kansas City area, a secondary market at best, touted their menu item “Chicken McBites” by comparing it as preferable to more risky endeavors: shaving your head, naming your son Sue, petting a stray pit bull and sharing your Facebook password with your friends. The ad clearly emphasizes, “stray” pit bull. A public hue and cry ensued over the stereotyping of pit bulls as “dangerous,” “vicious,” and “risky” animals and gave McDonald’s the kind of free publicity that hasn’t been seen since the “Nuke ‘em” ad from Jack-in-the-Box back in the 1970’s. McDonald’s move has sparked a massive flame war on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other mass media venues, including major network television and radio news shows. The cost to McDonald’s: a mere bag of shells – they pulled the ads (which means they don’t have to pay for them anymore, either) and proffered this apology which is about as bland as their McBites: “We apologize for running a local Photo credit: Ginger Monteleone 16 FOUR PAWS MAGAZINE • fourpawsmagazine.org
ad insensitive in its mention of pit bulls. We didn’t mean to offend anyone and the ad is being pulled.” What was really risky was McDonald’s sneaking the ad into a smaller market and letting nature take its course. They might tick off; in order: people with shaved heads, usually young toughs who can take pretty good care of themselves on the street and don’t give a hoot what you say about them, they’ll just flip you the bird or pound you down into a manhole cover, whichever appeals to their mood of the moment…or old men tired of their tired old comb-overs; boys named Sue – since the old Johnny Cash song in the 1960’s, how many boys named “Sue” have YOU actually come across; pit bull owners, pit bull lovers and pit bull rescuers – a tenacious breed indeed; or morons who would freely share their Facebook password with their friends, hardly a likely scenario. So the pit bull people win – 8,200 of them according to the Huffington Post. They spread the word, named names, named products,
kept spinning the tale all the while until at least one or two people were sparked to try the little snippets of chickens coated in batter, deep fried in grease and served with processed sauces fresh from the lab. So the ad backfired – McD’s had to pull it. What they gleaned in free publicity is rivaled by any national major market ad campaign and it was all free, courtesy of the pit bull enthusiasts and animal lovers everywhere who signed on to support the protest of the ad. The bottom line: a bite from a stray pit bull is about as dangerous as a bite from a stray poodle. The bite pressure on the hand, or other part of the human anatomy, is exactly the same in pit bulls and poodles or any other dog. Petting ANY stray dog is risky, which is why professional animal handlers (including rescuers) take proper precautions before handling a stray. Eating a Chicken McBite? Is it risky? Given the usual tastelessness of the general fast-food industry’s offerings, I’m disinclined to find out…