A new television ad for McDonald’s has sparked an online debate about whether the fast-food chain’s latest marketing effort is in bad taste.
The ad features McDonald’s signs from over the years, commemorating a wide variety of events, ranging from wedding anniversaries and birth announcements to national tragedies such as 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing.
Some people, including Tim Calkins, marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, lauded the
ad as heartwarming, CNN reported.
Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork + Company Advertising in Albuquerque, told CNN: "I thought the ad was awesome. It's clear that all the billboards were real. It was demonstrating that McDonald's is Americana."
But some people think it’s tacky.
McDonald's USA chief marketing officer Deborah Wahl said the ad was intended to reflect the company's history in communities, through good times and bad, and that the company is surprised by the
negative attention the ad has gotten, The Associated Press reported.
Twitter users had mixed reactions to the ad.