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McDonald’s: First TV Ad

McDonald’s: First TV Ad


Posted Friday, October 10, 2008 - 11:45am

 

Name: First McDonald’s Commercial—Creepy!
Stats: 4,372,421 views, 18,000 comments.
What you see: Well, a very young Willard Scott as Ronald McDonald for one thing, dressed as a rudimentary and rough-at-the-edges precursor to what would become a global media phenom. Today, Scott's character is variously referred to online as "pretty scary" and elicits comments like, "I wouldn't let my kids anywhere NEAR that creepy clown." So while it's hard to see how this character on its own could have captured the imagination of millions of kids, its legacy continues. Perhaps it's got something to do with the line in the ad about how great it is to eat McDonald’s while watching TV—a TV-dinner culture that resonates to this day.
Takeout/Takeaway: Nostalgia has great currency for brands online even if the YouTube-viewing public seems as appalled as it is enthralled by the McDonald’s ad.
Social Media Effect: What started as an attempt to sell a few burgers with a mascot has come full circle and become an ironic take on a now-beloved icon.

YouTube BrandWatch is The Big Money's exploration into how the world's best-known businesses, so adept at managing their images offline, are being perceived online, where control is harder to come by. Every week, The Big Money features a corporate-themed video that's had significant viewership on YouTube: some approved, some unapproved, some mashed-up combinations of the two. And we'll ask our readers to vote on how the video affects the brands. We think the responses will surprise you, and provide a window onto what is fast becoming the most important playground for corporate games. (Note: This feature has no official relationship to YouTube or its owner, Google.)

 

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  • Bernhard Warner is editorial director of Social Media Influence.
  • Matthew Yeomans runs Custom Communication
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