McDonald's Advertising in Popular Culture
Advertisments of the 1980s and 1990s
In the 1990s McDonald’s began to use celebrity endorsements in their advertisements in an attempt to gain a wider customer base for their food. In one particular advertisement titled “The Showdown”, two of basketball’s biggest legends, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, face off over a McDonald’s Big Mac. As the advertisement progresses the competition between the two gets stiffer as the two superstars complete more and more complicated shots. The question one must ask themselves when viewing this advertisement is what the purpose of this advertisement is. The obvious answer, according to McDonald’s, is that their food is so great that even star athletes would spend hours of their time fighting over it. Since famous people such as Michael Jordan and Larry Bird like McDonald’s the general public should in turn also like McDonald’s food. This advertisement appeals to the need for prominence because the advertisement shows that McDonald’s is enjoyed by those who have a high social status. This advertisement leads people to the assumption that if they eat McDonald’s Big Macs they can also enjoy a bit of the social status and prestige of famous athletes by eating the same things as them.
McDonald’s main advertising goal in the 1980s continued to focus on the family and portraying McDonald’s as a happy place to eat a meal. According to the article “Love on a Bun: How McDonald’s Won the Burger Wars” by James Helmer, “McDonald’s advertising campaigns of the 1980s amounted to an attempt symbolically to reconstitute the family and relocate it under the golden arches”. McDonald’s advertisements sought to build a sense of community which was centered upon the consumption of a meal at McDonalds. McDonald’s also realized that what defined a family was quickly changing. James Helmer’s article noted that by the 1980s “nearly one of every two [women] had jobs outside the home”. As a result, women had less time to prepare meals for their families, but still wanted to have an eating experience that reminded them of home. One advertisement that exemplified this feeling of home and family was the advertisement “Little Sister: McDonald’s and You.” In this advertisement a boy watches his younger sister grow up from a two year old baby who wanted attention to a beautiful young woman who becomes homecoming queen. The advertisement focuses on making McDonald’s an important part of the little girl’s experience growing up by showing her eating McDonald’s food at different stages of her life. By showing the girl happily enjoying McDonald’s in each stage of her life McDonald’s is portrayed as a desirable place to feed and raise a child. This advertisement gave McDonald’s the home-like feeling that adults were looking for when choosing where to feed their families.