Say No to McDonald’s!

In light of McDonald’s ill-advised advertising spot, Xena the Pit Bull decided to make an unequivocal statement of how she feels about the industry giant…

For those of you who haven’t heard, McDonald’s aired a radio spot (entire ad spot below) that starts out with “Trying a brand new menu item at McDonald’s isn’t risky. You know what’s risky? Petting a stray pit bull….” It goes downhill from there.

Immediately, there was an outcry from the dog loving community of Pit Bull stereotyping yet again. It’s not bad enough we have to deal with media sensationalism each time a dog that even remotely resembles a Pit Bull is involved in an attack. It doesn’t matter law abiding, responsible dog owners are prevented from living in certain cities if they choose to keep their Pit Bulls. It doesn’t matter the outrageous insurance premiums most of us have to pay just to say we own a Pit Bull. For McDonald’s, it was about the almighty buck. Making another dollar off their nutritonally bereft food that’s dangled in front of our kids day in and day out. I remember the first time I took my nephew out to eat, he wanted McDonald’s. I was shocked and quickly shared with him the true meaning (and taste!) of food that’s actually good for you.

McDonald’s quickly capitulated with an apology: “In our effort to spread the word about our new Chicken McBites, one of our local markets ran an ad that inadvertently offended some of our customers. The ad was insensitive in its mention of pit bulls. We apologize. We are pulling the ad, and will review our creative screening process. It’s never our intent to offend anyone with how we communicate news about McDonald’s.”

I’ve worked in advertising and marketing for 30 years and can tell you someone dropped the ball big time! Here’s a review for your creative process, McDonald’s: Fire the ad agency that created the ad, fire the creative director who approved it, and make a very large donation to BAD RAP, The Unexpected Pit Bull, StubbyDog Project, Pinups for Pit Bulls, Pbr Oklahoma, or any of the other Pit Bull rescues across the United States that work tirelessly to change the image of these beautiful creatures.

As for Xena? She said she’ll be happy to never eat road kill or Chicken Nuggets ever again!

       
Bridget Pilloud - March 28, 2012 - 2:01 pm

Thanks for standing up Xena!

tylerdog - February 14, 2012 - 1:40 am

True! The good news, Veronica, is at least McDonald’s pulled the ad, so it didn’t continue to air. Alas, the damage was done, but hopefully they learned something from this. If nothing else, that there are a lot of Pibble lovers out there that won’t stand for anymore stereotyping and bad press! Xena says, “Yeah!” 🙂

Veronica - February 14, 2012 - 1:24 am

What about the radio stations that aired this? Shouldn’t they be called out, too? Grrrr.

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