Politics

The Worst PR Year for McDonalds

By Anne Landman

Chicken nuggets precursor?First, a weird photo of thick, pink, gooey sludge appeared on the Internet that was purported to be the raw material that chicken nuggets are made of. Then, in April, New York photographer Sally Davies purchased a Happy Meal, set the burger and fries on a plate in her apartment and photographed them every day for six months as an art project, only to discover that the Happy Meal looked exactly the same six months later -- no mold, no decomposition, nothing. Her "Happy Meal Project" started garnering attention from the media and time lapse video of it appeared on YouTube. The project led to speculation about the meal's composition, nutritional value and health effects, and put McDonalds in the unenviable position of arguing that its food can grow mold. Then in September, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine ran a gruesome anti-McDonalds "Morgue Ad" that advocated vegetarianism, and finally, in November, the City of San Francisco effectively banned Happy Meals after it passed a law prohibiting restaurants from offering free toys with meals that contain more than a certain amount of calories and fat. All in all, McDonalds took what some call its worst PR beating ever in 2010.

Full post as published by PR Watch on November 05, 2010 (boomark / email).