TVC: McDonald’s–Fry Security App
By Malay Desai From: Toronto, by Tribal Worldwide Tapping upon the behaviour of fast food consumers of picking up a French fry or two from a friend’s plate, McDonald’s Canada created an app for ‘security.’ With the paper on serving trays pointing where one must keep one’s phone after turning the app on, the user can be alerted in cases of ‘fry theft.’ The ad film for this app quotes mock statistics of fry theft in Canada before showing how it works. It also interviews an anonymous fry thief and ends with the app logo that’s smaller than the McDonald’s logo. Why we Like? Clients expecting incredible utilities from phone apps and agencies suggesting complicated routes of customer gratification through smartphones, let’s all minimise those PPT windows and take a break. Sometimes, and especially if you are a fun fast food brand, the app need not do anything insightful or thought-provoking, it could just be ranking high on the fun department. Anyone who’s had French Fries knows that it’s virtually impossible for your companion to not pick one or more, even if he or she is on the brink of a cholesterol disaster. This is no ‘insight,’ as the ad film mockingly states, it’s just a simple, obvious understanding of consumer behaviour inside your QSR outlet. The idea is impactful because McDonald’s is synonymous with long, steaming French Fries for many, making the app idea a fun proposition for regulars. It doesn’t take much (we assume) for the user to open the app, place it in the designated area and activate a ‘security system’, which would sound an alarm with a hand over it, leading to much enjoyment on the part of the stealer and the eater. McDonald’s promo film rightly takes a straight faced but hilarious route to sell the app to the market – Canada. The lead actor quotes statistics such as ‘99 to 100 per cent’ people in the country having been victims of fry theft, which itself sounds like a trivial concept. The film explains with two such instances, with people stealing fries from the actor himself, before he decodes a mock meaning of ‘FRY’. With terms such as ‘fend off the offenders’ and ‘state of the art’ system, the film easily puts on a serious face about this grave problem. The best bit, however, is the film’s interview with an anonymous fry thief, complete with a silhouette and a criminal style confession. With this, the film shows multiple locations and visuals, but not without the big M’s colour, red. I am surprised though, that the concept has been taken so seriously, the app logo gets more screen space in the climax than the brand logo itself. Desi fast food brands or anyone selling fun, please take note. To watch the film type‘goo.gl/kbtEvN’in your browser Social Newsfeed Your regular dose on the shifts in the social media universe #PutOutYourBats – Moving Tribute to Phil Hughes Australian batsman Phillip Hughes passed away last week after being hit by a bouncer, and this one event simply got the cricket fraternity – boards, players and fans together like never before in recent history. Tragic as it is for a 25-year-old lad on the edge of greatness to fall to a freak accident while doing what he loved best – playing cricket, it was heartening to know of the world rallying behind him and the bowler Sean Abott. Last Friday, a Sydney dad put a cricket bat at his front door and sent a tweet out with its picture – signifying that Hughes is still around, and will come out to bat soon. The gesture soon spread across Australia and the world, with thousands, even boys and girls from our cities, participating. The trend hit a new high when Google’s Australia home page put up an image of a bat on its homepage. A long look at all the tributes revealed just how much we felt for the game and its people. Nobody likes this Twitter backlash to blame for Tejpal’s Lit Fest ouster? When Tarun Tejpal, former editor of Tehelka magazine who is out on bail in a rape case, was named as one of the panelists in The Times of India’s upcoming Lit Fest in Mumbai, it raised many eyebrows and rolled even more eyeballs. The organisers had put him together with his industry colleague Manu Joseph, Haider writer Basharat Peer and minister Mani Shankar Iyer and to me, this seemed to be a daring move toward a potentially explosive discussion. However, thanks to a loud backlash by some intolerant Twitterati, the TOI Group announced that this would no longer be. Bachi Karkaria, senior editor and among the core thinkers of the fest blamed the ‘extraneous noise’ for this. Now some, such as Firstpost’s bloggers are taking credit for this but all I know is that criminal or not, Tejpal has been an active intellectual and deserved a platform. BJP likes this ‘Girl walking alone’ reaches Delhi and Mumbai I had reported earlier of the New York viral video of a girl walking alone on streets, highlighting that harassment can happen everywhere. Then, a Pune builder very smartly put up a video of his city calling it safe for women and hence investment worthy and now, not surprisingly, there have been such experiments in Mumbai and Delhi. In supposedly the ‘nation’s safest city for women’, one of the videos proved this tag while in another, a girl wearing a long skirt was followed by and stared at by several men. In Delhi, things were rougher, where a girl in shorts had a crude nightmarish time being catcalled and even approached by the capital’s infamous men. Either way, these videos are more of opportunities for visibility by parties like the builder and other click baiters. Truth will keep varying. Perverts like this
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