McDonald’s capitalises on Australia Day by appealing to ‘Strayan’ slang
Just in time for Australia Day, DDB Sydney has created a series of out-of-home ads for McDonald’s which showcase the unique ways Australians pronounce the fast-food products.
Bekeneg Migmufn is unique to Australia
The ads include phrases such as “cheez burga”, “lar tay”, “mick nuggits” and “kworda pownda”.
Macca’s enticing Aussies to have some ‘Mick Nuggits’
Unthoughtfully insensitive and racist. This would cause traffic tie ups in the U.S.
I’ve never seen anything so stupid, nor incorrect.
I’m a 59 year old Aussie and I’ve never heard ANYONE speak like this.
Racist at best!
Maybe it’s just what the staff hear?
As a huge percentage of McDonald’s staff were not born nor educated in Australia.
I walk into any of the stores in the city of Sydney when I travel down there (not that I eat the crap much) and the majority of staff struggle with even basic English………..
I feel like a total outsider in my own country of birth (and NO, I didn’t kill or ostracise the original inhabitants).
As a caucasian, Australian born woman who worked at McDonalds in my teens and I can tell you 100% this is how (we) Australian’s order McDonalds so stop blaming it on ‘non-English speaking’ for that fact that we’re a nation of lazy speakers. I mean, is today Choose-day or Toos-day? Buy a mirror and gain a little bit of perspective because you might be the racist one. Yikes for you!
Racist tosspots. this is the most offensive thing iv seen in advertising in Australia and im not easily offended.
You can’t be racist against white people. If you don’t know that by now maybe there is no hope as you certainly haven’t been listening. You can be prejudiced maybe.
Racism is institutional, endemic, systemic and insedious. There is a difference between racism and prejudice. If anything you could argue this is having a dig at a regional dialect in a bit of a snobby way. But please don’t cry racism.
Let me know when your definition of racism makes it in to the dictionary.
If you want to call out institutional, systemic, or whatever the hell strand of racism you’re actually talking about then please use those qualifying words. Don’t twist the meaning of the existing, easily understood term or you just end up confusing people and doing everyone a disservice.
Not racist at all
JOisus. Heaps of triggered people here
@Not racist
Just quickly check a dictionary – yes, you can be racist against any race.
But this campaign sure ain’t racist.
Yeah let’s ignore thousands of years of cultural history and take it back to a basic interpretation of a dictionary definition. This is the sort of nonsense people said that defended ‘all lives matter’ instead of ‘black lives matter’.
Jeez – Go on some training or something.
‘Black lives matter’ doesn’t mean ‘white lives don’t matter’.
It means ‘people of colour are treated unfairly and killed by police at a far higher rate than caucasians are in the US’.
‘Black lives matter’ doesn’t suggest that it’s impossible for white people to be treated unfairly by police or killed. Rather, proponents of the movement would point to the statistics.
Similarly, I’d encourage you to look at the statistics. Yes, you’ll find more examples of racism towards minorities, of course.
That doesn’t mean that racism towards a majority is impossible, or, in your words, “You can’t be racist against white people.”
So, maybe you should go on training or something?
Savage
How on earth could this be considered racist? Culturally insensitive would be a better argument, but it’s an Australian campaign from an Australian creative team. I weep for the internet.
On a more positive note, nice nice work here – props to DDB.
Just because a few groups of racist academics have been throwing that discourse around for a few years doesn’t make it true. Racism is incredibly easy to define, how anyone thought they could redefine racism to not include the word race is beyond me. I think it’s dangerous and irresponsible.
If you’re confused try having a look at the united nations definition of racial discrimination and then take another look at your comment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Legal
Anyway, back to the work…
I like the concept and imagine it was well received but think the lines could have sounded more like the way Australians actually pronounce them. Some of the executions feel overly forced.
Yeah. The same argument that the ‘all lives matter’ lot use as does Trump. If you’re not going to recognise white privilege as a concept at all then I don’t think we’ll ever agree. Do you argue for an international men’s day too?
Explain to me how the relationship between institutional racism and white privilege works in a country such as Singapore, Malaysia, China etc.?
Go figure
Cool your jets folks…Aussie twang is a thing. You know how Americans sound different to British people? We sound different too. Hope everyone had a cracking Straya day.
Hmmm. I believe Afferbeck Lauder beat them to the concept some 55 years ago. Perhaps they got their hands on the 2009 reprint.
I love this. I don’t know why the hoi polloi are huffing and puffing about racism, this is affectionate and different.
What a stupid stretch to call this funny little campaign offensive. You live in a country where 69% of the population are of Celtic origin. They speak English and very often and very badly.
So anticipated a good market reach – which is the aim of advertising.
Attention getting and relating to a wide market. Job done.
Savage
yeh gavin
Noice
The ad that annoys me most is the one featuring an elderly couple where the wife hands the husband an i o u for $6 saying you gave this to me when we were just 16 years old. Unless I am mistaken we did not have decimal currency when they were 16 years old.