Battleangel

McDonald’s is missing the point again.

Ad campaign aims to combat recent attacks on quality and safety practices by fast-food giant.

CNN - The detectors, along with hourly tasting tests of burger and sausage patties made at the plant and five-hour-long nightly cleanups, are just a few of the food quality and safety measures McDonald’s Corp. requires of its suppliers.

And the company wants its customers to know it.

McDonald’s on Monday will kick off a two-day media event to tout the quality of its food and combat critics who say its burgers and fries are unhealthy.

Also claim the reason people lambast them is because they are the “biggest and the best.” Right …. So typically American.

The article brings up “Super Size Me” of course and notes a falloff in sales in Britain, but fails to reference “McLibel” and the court underlying case which by any standard is the biggest setback to McDonald’s fast-food hegemony ever. See the flyer that started it all (pdf download). Or visit the activists’ site. Not only were McDonald’s not able to see the prosecution of Helen Steel and Dave Morris on libel to the end, but their nefarious business practises were put to scrutiny and on public record.

The verdict was devastating for McDonald’s. The judge ruled that they ‘exploit children’ with their advertising, produce ‘misleading’ advertising, are ‘culpably responsible’ for cruelty to animals, are ‘antipathetic’ to unionisation and pay their workers low wages. But Helen and Dave failed to prove all the points and so the Judge ruled that they HAD libelled McDonald’s and should pay 60,000 pounds damages. They refused and McDonald’s knew better than to pursue it. In March 1999 the Court of Appeal made further rulings that it was fair comment to say that McDonald’s employees worldwide “do badly in terms of pay and conditions”, and true that “if one eats enough McDonald’s food, one’s diet may well become high in fat etc., with the very real risk of heart disease.”

Adding insult to injury for McDonald’s and the UK, Helen and Dave “took the British Government to the European Court of Human Rights to defend the public’s right to criticise multinationals, claiming UK libel laws are oppressive and unfair and that they were denied a fair trial.” And WON again no less.

What McDonald’s is doing here is making a big deal about how genuine their food is. Either because they are under the delusion that this is the root cause of their PR plight or because they understand it is the only quasi-honest claim they can make. So their hamburgers are made from meat. Great. I guess they could also focus on their employees being human. All of that is besides the point. Their burgers and culture will still shave years off your life, destroy ecosystems, exploit children, flaunt labour laws, help spread US business mentality … the list goes on.

And like the “McLibel” verdict noted, McDonald’s will spend billions every year in “misleading” advertising.