I'll disagree slightly with tptacek... this is a genius piece of marketing by McDonalds. It does everything that we routinely see listed on this very site as Best Practices™:
- Respond to customer feedback in a friendly and highly transparent manner.
- Don't sugarcoat things that "everyone knows but no one admits"; they could have avoided showing the graphic artist photoshopping the burger, but everyone knows that they use photoshop, so why bother? Show everything and customers will trust you more.
- Use social stuff like Twitter to encourage customer feedback. It will create a positive loop that encourages others to follow and interact with their main corporate account.
- Respond before something is actually important. This one isn't showcased so strongly - this isn't a pressing issue by any measure - but they still took the time to respond to it and make a brief, informative, and actually engaging video about it, without some external "we screwed up, sorry" event. Interacting with customers like this before problems arise is simply awesome.
"everyone knows that they use photoshop, so why bother?"
I think this is a great comment, but I disagree a bit with the reasoning in this tiny bit of your comment.
I think that it is important that they show exactly how much they "cheat" with photoshop because they only "cheat a little". If you're critical of McDonalds, you will assume that they photoshop and that they photoshop a lot. To combat such a misconception it is important to show how little you need to photoshop by showing "all of it".
But other than that, I agree with you. Well done, McDonalds. I don't like your food, but I appreciate your honesty.
It's a no-cost honesty play all around. Everyone knows the food in ads doesn't look like the food in the store. No one really cares. The few who do care weren't going to eat there anyway, so their opinions are wholly irrelevant.
The get the benefits of being honest with none of the cost. It's a total win.
Exactly. People don't go to McDonald's because the food looks right. They go because no matter where you are in the world the experience is same (or at least roughly the same) - quick food that tastes good. Until humanity isn't faced with being rushed to eat, I don't see McDonald's going anywhere soon.
I used to be from the school of thought that this marketing was "bad" or misleading the consumer. I think quite the contrary now. I've found that most buying behavior is ridiculously irrational and that marketing is effectively just exposing that human weakness.
BMW ad that shows a smart middle aged man with a beautiful women? That actually can be true. You don't buy a BMW for it's utility (getting from A to B), you buy it for the potential experience (getting from A to B with a hot blonde). Otherwise you go with the Smartcar. BMW marketing is just giving you ideas of what that potential experience can be. It's up to you to use the tool to create the experience.
My personal qualm with McDonald's lies in its nutritional and health values. Surprisingly, they have adapted their products to suit popular opinion (salads, low-fat items, etc...). I think McDonald's won't go anywhere even if humanity IS faced with a food crisis, since it's easy to make and cheap.
I totally agree about advertising exposing a human's weakness.
Regarding BMW, I know someone who purchased a BMW just to go to auto club meets and meet new people. So far, he says the car has landed him opportunities he would have missed by not driving the car and surprisingly, it has impressed some ladies. I'm not one to comment on the quality of his new 'contacts' but it is what it is.
Regarding BMW, I know someone who purchased a BMW just to go to auto club meets and meet new people.
I have to admit, that is a new one. Did he purchase an M5 or other super expensive/powerful BMW to go to auto club meets? Or other model? In some areas of the USA, a 3/5/7 series BMW is a run of the mill luxury car.
Despite the fact that many 3 series drivers never take their vehicles beyond the capabilities of a Buick, it is definitely one of the all-around best automobiles on the market today.
While they don't care I think it will make some people think. It might give even a few the idea for their future career; this was a very good short about presentation and it did show some of the tricks of the trade.
You claim they responded transparently and without sugar coating anything. So what was the answer to the original question?
Why does the ad burger patty appear thicker and larger?
Edit: So many answers talking about how they might make a quarter pound patty look larger. Anyone can do that. I was addressing the fact that the video in no way covers why they look larger in advertisements. Sidestepping the important question (selling false images, a product made differently) is what makes this merely a good marketing piece, and not any sort of honest explanation from McDonalds.
1) they stack up all pickles/onions/etc in the front for ads.
2) the real burger goes in a box and the steam makes the bun shrink a little
Also, they didn't say it but they showed it:
The burger is cooked differently for the ad. I got the impression they were just grilling it to make it look good but with minimal cooking (I wonder if it's even safe to eat the ad one). If you've ever cooked a burger, you'll know they shrink when you cook them.
Yeah, there was a kids' documentary made about fast-food photography a few years back. Basically they will just use a skillet to surface cook (brown) the outside of the patty to avoid the shrinkage that occurs when you grill a burger (lots of water and fat drip out and evaporate). This sort of answers the parent's question too. It's definitely not safe to eat.
IIRC, in the Burger King ads they heat thin metal strips and use them to sear lines into the patty, giving the "flame-grilled" illusion without having to cook and shrink the patty.
Actually, here's the children's documentary I mentioned. They also use a couple other sneaky tricks to make the product appear larger without image manipulation software.
Further, the burger press used in store, is usually pushed on a bit by the employees to cook the burger faster, but also flattening it a bit, and getting rid of some more juices that make up volume.
Urgh. So many answers that the real bun is shrinking due to the steam - that would make the real patty look thicker than the ad patty, when compared to the bun (the only real comparison possible), so that's clearly not the answer.
I would point to the scene where they're rolling the patty on the skillet to flatten the edges. That, combined with possibly less squishing by the press and less cooking overall would give you thicker edges in particular, making the patty look bigger in the ad. We only see the edge and overall width, after all, not the whole patty.
When they show the image that is half prepared burger and half store bought burger (3:20), you can see that they're almost exactly the same height. We perceive the store bought one to be smaller because it has cheese covering up most of the patty and melted on (whereas the prepared one has the cheese resting on top), it's darker/less vibrant, and the bun is hugging the patty tightly, which makes the patty seem smaller when compared to the space provided by all of the toppings in the specially prepared burger.
I think we can infer that they didn't show all of the tricks they use. While it's true that all the ingredients have to be as sold in the store, there are plenty of tricks... they showed some, but possibly not all.
In the Metafilter thread, someone mentioned that on a styling shoot they'd been on, it appeared to be common practice the butterfly the back of the burger and manipulate it such that the patty appears thicker. I assume by front-loading the bulk of the patty toward the camera.
That may or may not have been done, but it's an example of a trick that abides by the "must be the same stuff as is sold" rule but would still result in a larger-looking patty. I think we can assume that not every little trick made it into the few-minute edit of the few-hour styling process, and likely the tricks selected for the final edit were the least deceptive.
Another small factor at play is selection bias. They have lots of buns and lots of patties to choose from, and they choose the ones that look the best.
She says the retail burger looks smaller because the bun collapsed from the moisture in the enclosed box. She also describes how they arrange the burger to "lean" in the photo, so that might add to the effect. Also the obvious reason would be the one burger was slapped together in 45sec vs. 4-5 hours of meticulous grooming: Selecting the loftiest bun, searing the edges to square up the perimeter of the patty before grilling, delicately balancing the layers on top of each other, etc...
They do exactly that when they're showing the Photoshop workflow. The actual patty looks like it might be a hair thinner, but most of the difference is your perspective being thrown off by the collapsed bun and melted cheese from what I can see.
You're picking at the difference between the proximate cause and the ultimate cause of the ad looking the way it does.
Q: Why does the ad burger patty appear thicker and larger?
A: Because we made it *this* way [show process].
Sounds reasonable to me. Perhaps you wanted an answer more like,
A: Because we wanted to show off all the ingredients in the
best possible light, to encourage you to buy it.
It actually takes a few why/because cycles (i.e. root cause analysis) to approach the ultimate cause; for example:
A: Because we made it *this* way.
Q: Why?
A: Because it makes the burger look good and it shows
you what's in it.
Q: Why?
A: Because if the burger looks good and you know what's
in it, you'd be more likely to buy it.
Q: ???
A: Profit!!!
Alas, the original question did not stipulate a particular kind of answer; I think the response, as given, sufficiently answers the question.
“Here you can definitely see there’s a size difference. The boxes that our sandwiches come in keep the sandwiches warm, which creates a bit of a steam effect, and it does make the bun contract a little bit.”
McDonald's grills press the meat patties in real-world production. It drives out fluids and the finished product appears smaller than one cooked by different methods.
Which doesn't make the ads any less shammy. "Here is a representation of the product produced in a way that is nothing like the actual process to produce said product in an attempt to make the product look better than it actually is". Hmmm...
Oops—my response was unclear. I should have said "seemingly-larger" patty. My complaint is that they're cooked completely differently, leading to a final image where the patty appears larger than anything you would get from a McDonalds.
Minus the photoshop, the burgers could technically be made to look that way, but the customer is more keen on speed than presentation. Its marketing, welcome to earth.
McDonald's is in a fortunate/unfortunate position in that they can afford to have an ad campaign based upon honesty, because the unvarnished truth is still a lot better than the stuff that an awful lot of people already believe about them. I've heard many of these urban myths repeated in the wild by otherwise intelligent people:
My favourite fact about most of these is that they allege that McDonald's is using a disgusting ingredient which would almost certainly wind up more expensive than the real thing. Hamburger-grade beef sells for, what, four dollars a pound? Probably a lot less if you have McDonalds' buying power. What do you think worm meat costs?
You know, I don't believe most of the urban legends about McDonalds, and there are things they do that I can even respect (for instance, their contribution to french fry science [really], or their [very, very, very, very] gradual adoption of humane farming guidelines.)
But make no mistake that McDonalds is a business that is, if not as harmful as Philip Morris, gradable on the same scale. For the most part it's a company whose core business model is "leverage unfathomably vast marketing resources to coerce large numbers of people into making the least healthful dietary choice available to them at any given moment".
Let nobody suggest that I am a foe of the french fry or the well-constructed burger, but there's a difference between an occasional indulgence --- or even between the ambient availability of that indulgence and any group of people's poor decision making [oh, hi, me!] --- and the business model that depends utterly on persuading the most persuadable people to harm themselves, for no other reason that they were persuadable.
And so it's in that light that I think cynicism towards new "honest" attempts at persuading people is fair game.
Can't we say the same things about just about any business?
> "but there's a difference between an occasional indulgence"
Indeed...
> "and the business model that depends utterly on persuading the most persuadable people to harm themselves, for no other reason that they were persuadable"
You've lost me. You compare McDonald's to Philip Morris - even though one produces a highly addictive substance and the other produces (crappy) hamburgers. Last I checked, burgers are non-addictive.
In what way is McDonald's core business model dependent on something more than "occasional indulgence"? If we are to play the game that a business can only succeed if people are mindlessly, constantly, repetitively consuming its products, then we should be beating down the doors of, say, Redbox. After all, their business model works best if everyone sat on their asses all day doing nothing but watch movies.
I do not see the argument at all that McDonald's business hinges on the abusively high consumption of their foods. They are in no way worse than any number of peddlers of less-than-healthy foods. Where is the outrage for Ben & Jerry's? Frito Lay? Campbell's?
"A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks made by the likes of PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. aren’t simply unhealthy. They can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs.
“The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”"
Surprisingly, Sweet Tea (otherwise known as would-you-like-some-water-with-your-sugar in the south) has about 15 grams less carbs in the large than a Coke. I think I might never order another coke again.
Frito Lay is possibly even more morally fraught than McDonalds, since a large part of their business involves marketing themselves into kids lunches.
I'm not sure where Campbells comes into this. It's not great soup, but it's soup.
Obviously, there are people who think there's nothing wrong with a particularly successful marketing campaign for an unhealthful product. There are plenty of people who think there's nothing immoral about selling cigarettes.
I don't think less of those people, but I strongly disagree with them.
I think what you're trying to illustrate is the systematic risk many of these companies fail to recognize. Or they recognize them and its in the best interest not to do anything about it.
This is the same thing as pointing to the banks for selling CDOs. Risky for the banks? No. Risky for the whole system to collapse? Yes. Since systematic risks are largely not direct risks they never get counted as risks to begin with, and therefore do not impact decision making.
The real issue is that individuals lack self control and maintain ignorance, which leads to poor health related decisions. I see where you are coming from, but I insist that people should rely only on themselves in these cases. Placing the blame on businesses or government is particularly irresponsible. Note that I am not insinuating you make these poor health decisions, because clearly you are aware.
Businesses have thrown billions at turning the psychological research on persuasion into money and in the process have turned propaganda from an art into a science. They have a significant edge over the individual on this and have done it quite deliberately and in full knowledge of the aims, process and outcomes of these actions. I think they can afford to take some of the blame for the consequences.
Indeed. It seems reasonable to hold partially accountable for customers' choices any business that employs psychologists for the purpose of creating new or cementing existing customers.
The burgers are addictive, man. The craving, the feeling of being overcome by the desire to consume when you get one, the shitty feeling you get afterwards and yet still continue to eat it - that's addiction, bro.
And like the other guy said - it's backed up by science too. The insane amounts of fat, salt, and sugar spike the reward processors in the brain WAY past what they're built for. They are hacking you.
Some people must think they taste "good enough", given their popularity. Convenience and price obviously play big roles here, but they are also likely choosing McDonalds over other options on at least some basis of taste.
> But make no mistake that McDonalds is a business that is, if not as harmful as Philip Morris, gradable on the same scale. For the most part it's a company whose core business model is "leverage unfathomably vast marketing resources to coerce large numbers of people into making the least healthful dietary choice available to them at any given moment".
In Australia, they actually [no doubt due to social pressures] a large range of "healthy options" that are actually half-decent. I'm not sure whether they offer this stuff in the US, but compared to the numerous fried chicken, roast chicken and Burger King restaurants here, they are leagues ahead.
Note that I'm not defending their past behaviour-which I think we can agree was abysmal-but they have at least tried to reform and for a business of their size and brand, is no easy feat.
Rubbish. As an Aussie who has tried both, I have not noticed the difference. I deliberately tried the ones in the US to see if they were better, as people had said. They were the same tasteless garbage.
I only have experience with McDonald's in Western Europe, and here the food is not good. The pattys seem like the meat was thoroughly grinded to a smooth paste. The bread doesn't have any flavour, and because it's in a closed package with the rest it becomes soaked and soft from the steam. The worst part is the cheese (if you can call it that -- it doesn't look or taste like cheese at all). The fries are okayish. On the rare occasion that I'm with a group of people who want to eat something at McDonalds, I usually take a salad with the sauce in a separate package, because even the salad sauce doesn't taste good.
This was surprising to me. You can make a much better burger than McDonalds in 10 minutes with standard equipment. Just take some minced meat, form it into a flat cylinder, rub some olive oil salt and pepper, cook it in a frying pan, after you turned it around add (real) cheese on top and cook the other side, slice a bread in two and roast it a little in the same pan, and stack up the burger with some lettuce, tomato and some mustard and/or ketchup. Why can't a company whose primary purpose is to make burgers not make a burger half as good? It's not like the ingredients here are more expensive. Or do people really prefer McD's burgers?
Obviously you've not tried them in the UK. We've been to Vegas in the US and thought the burgers there were amazing. Like, "oh my god, this actually looks a bit like real beef!"
> For the most part it's a company whose core business model is "leverage unfathomably vast marketing resources to coerce large numbers of people into making the least healthful dietary choice available to them at any given moment".
They don't coerce anyone to eat their food. What a ridiculous hyperbole.
Depends whether you accept emotional manipulation in the definition of coercion, or use the more strict definition and restrict the concept only to actual or threatened force.
My point was as I said. There are two main definitions of coercion, one of which is stricter than the other. I was just replying to the statement that McDonalds does not employ coercion by pointing out that it rather depends on which definition you choose as if you choose the wider definition then most advertising is coercive to one degree or another. I wasn't really talking about the moral angle, just the semantics.
- Respond to customer feedback in a friendly and highly transparent manner.
- Don't sugarcoat things that "everyone knows but no one admits"; they could have avoided showing the graphic artist photoshopping the burger, but everyone knows that they use photoshop, so why bother? Show everything and customers will trust you more.
- Use social stuff like Twitter to encourage customer feedback. It will create a positive loop that encourages others to follow and interact with their main corporate account.
- Respond before something is actually important. This one isn't showcased so strongly - this isn't a pressing issue by any measure - but they still took the time to respond to it and make a brief, informative, and actually engaging video about it, without some external "we screwed up, sorry" event. Interacting with customers like this before problems arise is simply awesome.
Well done, McDonalds.