“The ethnic consumer tends to set trends,” McDonald’s U.S. chief marketing officer, Neil Golden, told Bloomberg back in 2010. “So they help set the tone for how we enter the marketplace,” he continues.
Golden’s point was that the preferences of minority consumers shaped (and continue to shape) McDonald’s menu and ad choices, which are in turn advertised to all Micky D’s customers.
Marketing aggressively to black people isn’t anything new for America’s biggest burger chain.
NPR recently unsurfaced ’70s-era McDonald’s ads that appeared in magazines like Ebony and Jet. NPR’s Gene Demby writes,
Here are a few of the ’70s-era McDonald’s print spots NPR dug up:
Photo: Ebony Magazine via NPR
Photo: McDonald’s Ad via NPR
“Dinnertimin'”? Seriously?
Demby points out,
NPR also explores an entire category of McDonald’s ad that concerned itself with black people getting jobs, or as Demby puts it, “McDonald’s ad[s] that trumpeted the idea of the fast-food chain as an engine for black and economic advancement.”
Photo: NPR
Photo: NPR
Fast forward to the 21st century, to this 2008 culturally-targeted McDonald’s spots which appeared in Ebony Magazine.
A 2008 Mcdonald’s ad in Ebony Magazine. (Photo: NPR)
What do you think, is “Lovin’ it” simply the modern day version of “Gettin’ down”?
[via NPR]