maleficent

McDonald's sorry for burger blunder


"Tasteless," is how charitable groups have branded a McDonald's burger in Norway that they claim ignores the starvation crisis in Africa. McDonald's is red-faced, and may donate proceeds from its controversial "McAfrika" burger.

"It's inappropriate and distasteful to launch a hamburger called 'McAfrika' when large portions of southern Africa are on the verge of starvation," says Linn Aas-Hansen of Norwegian Church Aid.

She stood outside a McDonald's restaurant in downtown Oslo this week, passing out free "catastrophe crackers" to passersby in protest. "This is a special, protein-rich cracker that we hand out to people in the hunger-stricken areas," she said.

Among those who got a taste of the crackers was an apologetic spokesperson for McDonald's in Norway, Margaret Brusletto.

She said McDonald's was sorry the name of its new burger, meant to reflect an African recipe, has negative connotations. "That wasn't our intention," she said. "At the same time, we acknowledge that we have chosen an unfortunate time to launch this new product."

There was no word as to whether McDonald's will pull its "McAfrika" burger off the market despite the protests in Norway, where aid organizations have launched one of the world's largest relief programs ever aimed at getting food to starving millions in southern Africa.

McDonald's officials, however, were due to meet representatives of the aid organizations on Thursday. "We expect that McDonald's will contribute to the fight to stem starvation," said Bjorg Mide of Norwegian Church Aid. "The company can, for example, share proceeds from the sale of this hamburger with the aid organizations."

Brusletto said that's "a possibility we will consider."
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Was the name in poor taste? Or are people just overly sensitive and looking for problems where there's none.

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liquidlight

Oh my God. . . are these people serious? I'm not buying it that McDonalds was attempting to be malicious, and last I checked they had quite a few charitable programs in place through their PR department.

Why is it that it doesn't matter what you say people have to be closed minded about it and take offense, regardless of your intentions?

I might possibly be more concerned about the "negative connotations" if there were a possibility that anyone from the african areas mentioned would have a possibility of seeing the burger. It's an add campaign, why can't people grow up?

One last comment, McDonalds even agreed to donate proceeds from the sale of the burger to benefit the groups suffering from starvation!

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Mojo_PeiPei

Proof of the pussfication of the world.

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TexanAvenger

She said it was a possibility, not a certainty. There's a large gap there.

While I can see the basis here, the whole scenario seems as though it's arisen out of people looking for things to be wrong. McDonald's said that the name stemmed from the recipe, and, while they might have thought harder on the name, that is all the name is meant to imply. There is not inherent ill-will posed by McDonald's towards Africa...

sadistikdreams

Well, it LOOKS good.

What's in it?

Thats the whole thing. I don't go to McDonalds for political reasons. I go there for food. I don't give a shit if they donate money to Africa or not. I don't get off on saying "Eating this cheeseburger makes me a better person because they donated 10cents from what I paid them." Hell no. And I'm not gonna not eat something because it has a controversial name. If it sounds good, if it looks good, I'll try it. Just imagine if they came out with the McNiger burger. Hey, if it's got good stuff in it, and it tastes good, let me be the 1st to say I'll eat it.

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maleficent

It's tomato, lettuce, cheese and a burger on a piece of pita bread - somehow I'm thinking it's not all that authentic but ok..

Looking for a decription of the burger, I didn't realize the date of the original article -- (2002 - -- talk about old news - -wonder what the outcome was -- Way to pay attention maleficent But someone had some fun with the concept:

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0829-06.htm

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la petite moi

Yeah, I agree with sadistikdreams. Fast food restaurants and sit-in restaurants alike should not be overridden with politics and the poverty of other countries. As the spokesperson said, it was made from an African recipe, hence the name. What a bunch of bullcrap that there are protestors. WAAAAY too sensitive.

Tophat665

Alert the media! We agree!

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Ace_O_Spades

Why is this a problem? So what, we can't say or attach the word "Africa" or any misspellings thereof at all while people are starving there?

I think people just overreact... Actually I KNOW people overreact, this is just another example.

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Feh.

Phage

I think it is funny that these people have the time to be angry with McDonalds when they are so concerned with people starving somewhere else. Why are they not over there if they care so much?

Also, is it not funny that they are trying to stop McDonalds from distributing food because other people don't have food?

zen_tom

They're not trying to stop McDonalds from distributing food, just pointing out a crass and distastefull advertising campaign.

(At the risk of being Godwin'd twice in as many weeks) How about the McHolocaust Burger, or the 9/11 Chicken Twin Towers - Smokin! Or perhaps the Bosnia-Hertzogovena Burger with ingredients sanitised by exotic immigrants (ethnically cleansed) - it's just not in good taste.

There was once an advertising campaign in the works for a frozen french-fries company. They thought it would be good to put their logo on the side of Fire-Trucks, with the tag-line "Home Fried" - Needless to say, it didn't go down too well.

It's not pussification (whatever that means), it's spending a little time thinking how your media campaign might be percieved by others.

Janey

Mcdonalds is in the business to make money. Otherwise it wouldn't be in business at all. Having said that, they are also one of the most responsible corporate citizens in the world, usually attempting to support local economies. We may have philosphical disagreements about their product, but I don't think that they would maliciously disenfranchise any customer.

maleficent

It often takes McDonald's two years to launch a new product (who says that the Food Network isn't educational) In this time, not only do they perfect the product, but they also work on naming the product, which would include putting it in front of focus groups. I don't know whether it was done in this case or not, but I don't beleive that someone decided a week before the launch that they were going to call it McAfrika. If the name didn't raise any red flags with a focus group, I'm not sure why people got their knickers in a twist.

A few years back, I was in Australia, and the McDonalds there had a product called the Aussie burger... were the aboriginal people supposed to be offended by this? If they came up with a burger that had bok choy, water chestnuts and soy sauce, serviong it in a scallion pancake and called it the McChina burger would people be offended by the treatment of baby girls in China?

On any given day, someone is going to be offended about something.

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sadistikdreams

AMEN! Just because one person is offended, doesn't mean that they should change everything.

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"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials."
-Lin Yutang

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asudevil83

i wouldnt take any offense to the name McAfrica....but goddamn that's a horrible name for a burger. "Yeah, i'd like a McMexico taco and a McJapan eggrole." that shit just sounds stupid.

but i could possibly see where some offense is taken. what if McDonalds served kosher food and called it part of their McJew lineup?

analog

Stupid name, I agree. But it's not like southern africa suddenly started starving- it's been an ongoing issue for quite some time- and they're only marketing it in certain places. Africa not being one of them.

I mean, if they came out with a McTower burger right after 9/11, that's one thing- but this is an issue that's a constant struggle, and they obviously didn't mean it to be MEAN.

Lasereth

Even their regular cheeseburgers don't taste authentic. I don't think McDonald's is going for authenticity.

Just another ordeal that was uncalled for. The people of Africa should find it interesting that part their culture is becoming mainstream due to other's enjoyment.

-Lasereth

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Zeraph

I don't know if they were being bad, but what lame idiot thought of the word McAfrika for a freaking burger? That is the lamest name ever!

This reminds me of freedom fries. Why don't we call our cheeseburgers McAmerica now too?

Glava

I don't think it's a misspelling. Africa is written as "Afrika" in Norwegian.

Seer666

Jesus CHRIST! More of this PC bullshit. AAAARGGGG. Somebody bring me a beer and a gun, I'm going to get rip roaring drunk, and then go shot these dumb mother fuckers for crimes against humanity, namely, droping the planets average IQ into the single digets.

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connyosis

Kinda lame yeah. People are getting way to PC, that's for sure...

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questone

We may have philosphical disagreements about their product, but I don't think that they would maliciously disenfranchise any customer.

rat

McDonald's response from a business standpoint was the appropriate one. Nothing kills a product line or comapny faster than appearing to be bigotted or coarse-humored about another country's population. They introduced a product in an area that was very sensitive to the plight of the people the product was named after. You didn't see this many people bitching when the Dixie Chicks music stopped being aired because they made fun of our president. Of course not, that offended us so it must be offensive to everyone.

It's kind of like naming a land acquisition company "Native American Land Development" around the time that they were all being pushed onto reservations--it seems crass and mean-spirited regardless of the actual intentions of the company. Especially with McDonald's being one of the largest global corporations, there are entire departments of people paid to do nothing more than develop culturallly- and socially-sensitive (and -responsible) marketing strategies, tools and materials to prevent such things as what happened. We're not talking a mom-and-pop shop that could be put out of business by a small regional problem. We're looking at a multi-billion dollar company with contracts worldwide (a significant portion of which are outside the United States) that could take a major hit across the board if they were viewed as bigotted, crass, racist or callous concerning the plight of starving nations.

I mean, honestly, what imbecile decided it was a bright idea to name a relatively expensive fast-food hamburger after a continent rife with plague, genocide and of all things starvation? I mean seriously, what was that person or team thinking? They're trained how not to do things that are the corporate equivalent of stepping on one's own penis with golf shoes. It's bad for business to have people make mistakes like this--especially in semi-socialist countries with activist populations who tend to care a whole lot more about liberal ideals like world peace and world hunger. That's someone in the marketing department not doing their research, and thus, not doing their job. It's not like this was run in the U.S. where the average joe couldn't give two shits about the people down the street, let alone across the ocean. This was done in Norway, land of a semi-socialist state of relatively liberal ideals compared to corn-fed home-grown "regular" Americans. McDonald's development and release teams severely misjudged their market with that one.

it seems like a lot of the people that post in threads like this are not geared towards the modern business environment, let alone a global business environment. Those of us currently getting our degrees in any business field (accounting, finance, marketing, management, and management information systemss) have situations like this constantly provided us as examples of what not to do. We're constantly reminded how essential it is to be culturally astute when doing business on any level, from small business ownership to working for a Fortune 100 firm. Things like: allowing Catholics to wear the ash on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday, allowing Muslims off for Ramadan and Jews for Yom Kippur, from understanding traditinoal greetings and how they vary from Europe to the Middle East to the Far East all the way to proper etiquette when dining with different cultures. To a greater or lesser extent, these focii placed on cultural awareness and one's ability to negotiate these situations are overarching throughout our classes, and thus, we have a more discerning eye regarding the overall implications of things like this. The gut reaction for most of you is "Hey, that's dumb. It's not McDonald's fault that Norwegians are pisssy!" and I'd say you're right. But it is McDonald's fault for ignoring the fact that Norwegians are sensitive to issues like African starvation, and plowing ahead carelessly with an ill-advised marketing plan for a new product that pissed off quite a few people.

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