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What's interesting is that McDonald's has tried something like this this before and, it has been argued, effed it up due to naming. For an interesting account
by klenwell 6y ago
What's interesting is that McDonald's has tried something like this this before and, it has been argued, effed it up due to naming.
For an interesting account of their first failed attempt, 30 years ago, I highly recommend this New Yorker article, The Trouble with Fries (2001):
https://web.archive.org/web/20081218211703/http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_03_05_a_fries.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20081218211703/http://www.gladwe...
It's Malcolm Gladwell so take it with a packet of salt I suppose. I think it's Gladwell at his best and I often find myself referring back to it whenever the topics of fast food or marketing come up.
On the naming:
The McLean was a flop, and four years later it was off the market. What happened? Part of the problem appears to have been that McDonald's rushed the burger to market before many of the production kinks had been worked out. More important, though, was the psychological handicap the burger faced. People liked AU Lean in blind taste tests because they didn't know it was AU Lean; they were fooled into thinking it was regular ground beef. But nobody was fooled when it came to the McLean Deluxe. It was sold as the healthy choice--and who goes to McDonald's for health food?
Times have changed, but I think there's still a lot to be said for this suggestion at end of article:
But transparency can backfire, because sometimes nothing is more deadly for our taste buds than the knowledge that what we are eating is good for us. McDonald's should never have called its new offering the McLean Deluxe, in other words. They should have called it the Burger Supreme or the Monster Burger, and then buried the news about reduced calories and fat in the tiniest type on the remotest corner of their Web site.
- maxsilver 6y agoI think the times have really changed since 30 years ago. McDonalds sells Fruit and Lattes and Salads and Wraps now (or did until the pandemic started) and while none of those were a top seller, they all moved units. Healthy (or at least, the illusion of healthy) is in, even at McDonalds. As long as the burger tastes good, and isn't gross or labour-neglected or similar (like their salads and wraps occasionally were), then I suspect the Plant-based Burger to do reasonably well. Anecdotally, I'm at McDonalds about once a week, and I'd try it at least once.
- Out_of_Characte 6y ago"buried the news about reduced calories and fat in the tiniest type on the remotest corner of their Web site." Exept how do you reach your target audience now? Vegans wont be checking the remotest corner of the mcdonalds website every sunday. Worst of all, you'll probaly piss off meat eaters who might feel deceived, your main customer.
- maxsilver 6y agoWould they really get that angry? Most people know that "Chicken" McNuggets are only modestly-chicken-based (and are primarily corn starch and whatever other stuff). McNuggets are still a top seller, even though real 100% Chicken Tenders were on the same menu right next to them for years. Similarly McChicken "nugget-paste-based" sandwiches are on the McDonalds menu, right next to 100%-real Buttermilk Chicken sandwiches. I could see something similar working out with a McPlant-type burger.
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoIIRC McDo in the UK advertise their nuggets as "100% breast meat". They clearly aren't as they have batter, but I assume they mean "the meat portion is 100% chicken breast" yet have a niggling feeling they mean "the meat we put in is all chicken breast but we put textured soya/other fillers in too". One of the problems with all the lying in advertising is you never quite know how cynical you need to be.
- Invictus0 6y agoThe McDo menu varies pretty dramatically from country to country, I wouldn't be surprised if they are telling the truth in that instance.
- maxsilver 6y agoFrom an American perspective, food quality in the UK seems to be much higher than we have here. In the US, McDonalds Nuggets contain way more filler -- up to 50% of any given nugget isn't even actual chicken meat at all, according to the University of Mississippi - https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/10/11/232106472/what-s-in-that-chicken-nugget-you-really-don-t-want-to-know https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/10/11/232106472/wh...
- ogre_codes 6y agoImpossible Burger and Beyond Burger have managed to get around this by focusing on the apparent paradox of healthy versus tasty. Burger King leveraging that branding and calling it the Impossible Whopper was a good call. Communicating that it's a plant based food isn't good enough, they need to communicate that it tastes good first and foremost.
- klenwell 6y agoYeah, when I originally learned what the Impossible Burger actually was, my first thought was, "Wow. They must have read that Malcolm Gladwell article."
- wraptile 6y ago> and who goes to McDonald's for health food? This is such a weird statement, especially when McDonald's constantly markets itself as a hangout/social/party food and is often perceived as such culturally everywhere around the world. So limiting variety seems like an awful contradiction here. When I was teen we'd hit mcdonald's constantly as a group of friends, that was pretty much the only time any of us would eat mcdonalds. Now that vegetarianism is becoming more popular mcdonald quickly dropped out of the menu since they don't have a single valid option. To me it's just so mind blowing that mcdonald's didn't carry a single vegetarian meal other than salad, fries or desserts; what a rookie business mistake.