Dearest Members of the McDonalds' Board of Directors:

I write this letter to you as I can think of no one else appropriate. I write to you on a matter of grave and urgent discovery. Despite being a former employee of McDonalds', I have, in fact, not regularly partaken of any food served by your restaurants, at any time other than breakfast, in several years. Tonight that all changed. And, through my experience, I have discovered wild and inaccurate statements in your marketing materials that profoundly misaligned my expectations with real-world circumstances. In other words, good sirs, I have been had.

Let's begin with the sandwich combo I ordered- the "Big 'n' Tasty." I say this not to be cruel and not to paraphrase Linda Richman but to illustrate a significant flaw in your marketing strategy: the "Big 'n' Tasty" was neither big nor tasty. Discuss. The truth, if it can be told in the light of day, is that the "Big 'n' Tasty" is in fact "small to middling" and "unabashedly mediocre." While I understand that brevity is the soul of wit and also not a Southern malapropism for the word "bravery," there probably were more truthful alternatives to the chosen "Big 'n' Tasty" moniker. The fact that you have not already been sued is either a testament to the poor vocabulary of the American public as a whole or the very impressive resume of your general legal counsel.

Moving along, we have the "large" french fries. Large, of course is a subjective term, and in different circumstances it can denote many different things. However, when ordering my french fries, I did so under the assumption that whatever size container I purchased, it would actually be full of french fries, not halfheartedly dashed with french fries and a more-than-adequate splashing of salt. And while I am willing to concede this may have been a misunderstanding on my part, my experiences at other fast food chains would lead me to believe that this is not the case.

Third, and more generally, we must discuss your marketing campaign. Currently, McDonalds' employs an advertising tag line that reads: "I'm Lovin' It," abandoning the popular but dated, "Have You Had Your Break Today?" While I must admit, in my capacity as a marketing professional, that I was extremely skeptical about the choice of this tag line when it first debuted, I have since become convinced of its efficacy and the "legs" that it has had to carry your marketing efforts over the last five years. However, upon deeper and more thorough experience with your brand I have come to find that I take exception to its use. You see, when I purchased my meal, it was one thirty in the morning, making it the now-popular "fourth meal" of another fast-food brand's advertising (though if you were going to count actual meals that I have eaten over the last twenty-four hours it is only the third). The first two were not overly satisfying, leading me to be rather ravenous. Otherwise, I would have bypassed your establishment altogether. To put it less politely, you could have fed me flash-fried horse apples and I would have happily dug in. Your product, though, left me very disappointed. I wouldn't say I was "lovin' it." I wouldn't even say I was "liking it as a friend." An honest assessment of my experience would read something more like, "I'm really, really hungry but sorely disappointed that they didn't have deep-fried horseshit on the menu because that probably would have tasted better than this." Once again, I'm sure brevity was a consideration in your choice of marketing slogan and while I disagree with the content of your message I do have to admit that four syllables is a lot easier to work into a jingle than the forty that my suggestion would require. I might also add that deep-frying horseshit would have cost me less than the $5.34 that I spent at your restaurant.

Once again, I respect that a healthy disregard for the truth is an integral part of any marketing strategy, but it will still take me a while to resolve the cognitive dissonance between having seen your commercials for years and having actually experienced your food tonight. I do not expect any compensation for my mental anguish, I just thought you might appreciate being aware of the effect you likely cause among your customer base on a routine basis.


Regards,


Chris

hey little fella, how are you doing today?: bouncy
soundtrack: Say Anything (I really don't like this movie)