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<\/p>\nThe following minutes were taken at a secret meeting of McDonalds’ Corporation’s corporate Strategic Marketing department.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
All names are redacted to protect the innocent.<\/p>\n
ATTENDING: [MARKETEER 1], [MARKETEER 2], [VP STRATEGIC MARKETING], [ADVERTISING DEPT 1], [VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING], [AD AGENCY REP 1], [AD AGENCY REP 2], [THE ANIMATED HEAD OF RAY KROC]<\/p>\n
[VP STRATEGIC MARKETING]: OK, come to order! Let’s get this meeting underway. [VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING], I’d like to to turn it over to you to talk about “Project Berfunkle”<\/p>\n
[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: Thanks, thank you. As you know, as part of McDonalds’ long-term plan to win even more market share, we’ve decided as part of our long-term strategic marketing initiative that, perhaps counterintuitively, “winning mindshare” isn’t as important as helping our competition lose <\/em>mindshare. Our campaign has been proceeding anon. And so I’ve brought in my assistant, [ADVERTISING REP 1], who has brought in a couple of the agency vendors involved in what may be our most successful “anti-mindshare” campaign yet. [ADVERTISING REP 1]?<\/p>\n
[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: Thanks. As you know, conventional advertising – the whole “draw people to your brand” – peaked out as a “means of getting people to try your brand” nearly twenty years ago. After years of intense market research, we found that launching spoofs<\/em> – what used to be called “black parodies” – of our competition’s advertising is actually much more effective.<\/p>\n
[MARKETEER 2]: Is that actually ethical?<\/p>\n
[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: Was bombing Dresden <\/em>ethical?<\/p>\n
[MARKETEER 2]: Hm.\u00a0 Good point.\u00a0 Continue.<\/p>\n
[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]:\u00a0 Thanks.\u00a0 So, approximately three years ago, we started Project Berfunkle – an initiative to launch black parody advertising “on behalf of” our competition, Burger King and Wendy’s. We combined this with our innocuous, “message”-free “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign.<\/p>\n
[MARKETEER 2]: I figured there had <\/em>to be an ulterior motive for that campaign.<\/p>\n
[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: You’re right! At any rate, I’m happy to say that this strategy has come to fruition. I’ve brought in [AD AGENCY REP 1], from [COMPANY 1 REDACTED], and [AD AGENCY REP 2], from [COMPANY 2 REDACTED]. Go ahead.<\/p>\n
[AD AGENCY REP 1]: About three years ago, our company launched a subproject of “Berfunkle”, called “Burger Knave”. We started running ads “for” Burger King, featuring “The King” as a grotesque, plastic-headed clown that appears as if from a nightmare in all sorts of surrealistic situations.<\/p>\n
[MARKETEER 1]: We <\/em>paid for those? Good G_d, those were awful!<\/p>\n
[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: That, of course, was the point. And it was hugely successful across nearly all demographics! Young children were frightened by the gargoyle-like, frozen-faced apparition. Middle-class adults were turned off by the forced, post-hip irony. Parents were repulsed by the implied obscenity of the “Big Huckin’ Chicken” spots…<\/p>\n
[MARKETEER 2]: Oh, maaaaan. I had to listen to those spots like five times to make sure there wasn’t an “f”-bomb in there!<\/p>\n
[AD AGENCY REP 1]: Precisely. In the end, every demographic except recent college liberal arts grads ended up less <\/em>likely to go to Burger King – and even among that demographic, only the left-leaning ones who really, really love kitschy irony ended up actually eating there…<\/p>\n
[MARKETEER 1]: Er, is that a good idea…?<\/p>\n
[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: Yes! They’re more likely to steal the food than pay for it!<\/p>\n
[MARKETEER 2]: Ingenious!<\/p>\n
[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: Thanks, [AD AGENCY REP 1]. Now, I’d like to turn to [AD AGENCY REP 2].<\/p>\n
[AD AGENCY REP 2]: Thank you. We covered the Wendy’s business. We got a later start, because we didn’t want to draw suspicions. Our ad campaign involves a series of incongruous archetypes, wearing the Wendy’s brand’s signature “Pippi Longstocking” wig. Market research since the campaign began running shows that over 60% of respondents thought “Wendy’s” was now a place to go to hear lesbian coffee-house poetry, or a French avant-garde <\/em>art film outlet, rather than a burger joint.<\/p>\n
[VP STRATEGIC MARKETING]: Wow.<\/p>\n
[MARKETEER 2]: I call that “success”!<\/p>\n
[AD AGENCY REP 2]: Thank you. Phase Two will involve images of cattle wearing the “Wendy” wig being pushed down the gates to the slaughterhouse as “Yakkity Sax” – the “Benny Hill” theme – plays on a bullhorn in the background, driven to their doom by a gaggle of “My Little Ponies”.<\/p>\n
[VP STRATEGIC MARKETING]: Wow. Excellent!<\/p>\n
[MARKETEER 1]: I’m speechless. Brilliant.
\n[VP STRATEGIC MARKETING]: So what is the next phase of Project Berfunkle?<\/p>\n[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: In February ’08, we start the “Culvers’ Custard presents Linda Ellerbee speaking for 9\/11 Truth” blitz. And in August, we roll out the White Castle “”Jughead” campaign, featuring a loveable, dope smoking NASCAR-watching androgynous 20-something high school dropout who rides a skateboard and leers at young girls as he wishes for a slider.<\/p>\n
[ADVERTISING DEPT 1]: Excellent!<\/p>\n
[VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING]: Well, Mr. Kroc, sir?<\/p>\n
[THE ANIMATED HEAD OF RAY KROC]: I pronounce it good. Burgers on the house!<\/p>\n
[ALL]: Yaaay!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And…scene<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The following minutes were taken at a secret meeting of McDonalds’ Corporation’s corporate Strategic Marketing department. All names are redacted to protect the innocent. ATTENDING: [MARKETEER 1], [MARKETEER 2], [VP STRATEGIC MARKETING], [ADVERTISING DEPT 1], [VP SPECIAL ADVERTISING], [AD AGENCY REP 1], [AD AGENCY REP 2], [THE ANIMATED HEAD OF RAY KROC] [VP STRATEGIC MARKETING]: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geekery","category-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}