I was working on an ad campaign idea for a fast food chain recently, and I was reminded of the old McDonald’s ad campaign for the Big Mac where they created the “Big Mac Attack”. That’s the one from the late 1980s where they had commercials showing people completely spazzing out due to their dangerous addiction to Big Macs (!). (It was almost as bad as the crack epidemic! And actually, if you listen to health-food-touting researchers, fast food is every bit as dangerously addictive as the worst drugs. I doubt that very much, but maybe Ronald McDonald wears that makeup because he’s a wanted drug lord, and this was the next best thing for addicting people and cashing in! Hey, you never know! {This is actually the allegation regularly lobbed at McDonald’s by the food police. No kidding. Well, not the Ronald McDonald being a fugitive drug lord part, but that they're knowingly and purposefully engaging in creating and serving addictive junk food.}) After that ad campaign, a bunch of guys perpetrated spree shootings in McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants, and it was always called “going postal”. How come nobody ever called it a “Big Mac Attack”? That would have been a perfect way for McDonald’s’s (McDonald’s’s? Strunk & White say: “Yes!”) competitors to smear them! Maybe that would have made it seem snarky though, huh? (But I’ll bet the Post Office thought calling it “going postal” was snarky too!)
But after terrorism became a bigger issue, I couldn’t help but think it would be funny for some competing fast food chain to make ads portraying McDonald’s as breeding terrorists with their “Big Mac Attacks”, and then show people all cowering from some crazy guy, and someone shouts: “Look out! It’s a Big Mac Attack!” (And then the building blows up.) Maybe then they could make McDonald’s look bad and grab some market share. (But I doubt it. McDonald’s is beating them all nowadays, and it’s easy to see why: their McRib tease! They always keep us wanting more! Hey: I guess maybe it is kinda like drugs after all!)
Here are some examples of the “Big Mac Attack” ads:
