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Here’s betting that this isn’t really the McRib farewell tour

Much like Cher, McDonalds announces every few years that “the McRib is back for a limited time only, and this time, is going away forever. For real. Not kidding. OK, well, if you guys love it that much who are we to defy the masses!”

You heard it here first: the McRib will never really go away. McDonalds loves the attention too much. Like Mallory said, there will probably be cockroaches ruling a post-meteor-hit Earth, happily dining on McRib sandwiches.

McDonalds even went so far as to leave themselves an out, this time. “It’s going away super forever really superduper not lying!! But we’ll sponsor a petition and encourage everyone to sign it so we don’t get rid of it.” The McRib website, as of this writing, reports a bit over 100,000 signatures to the petition. For an internet petition, that’s nothing. Someone could start a petition to give Screech from Saved by the Bell his own late-night talk show focusing on barnyard animals, and it’d have more signatures in a couple of days.

Not only that, who starts a petition against themselves? People start petitions to combat something a company or the government is doing. McDonalds is begging us to give them the attention they want by getting us to combat retiring the McRib. You know what? Good riddance. That sandwich is messy and tastes gross. I got one once, had half of it on my face and shirt, and wished that more of it had missed my stomach. If you like barbeque products, get some good stuff. Here in Dallas, at least, there are barbeque sandwich shops everywhere. You won’t pay that much more and you’ll get a better culinary experience.

On the bright side, McDonalds does have some cool tshirts to go with the promotion. We were giving them out at the Mavericks game the other night. There were two versions, both all black — one had a “McRib Farewell Tour” on the front in a cool font, and the other simply had a drawing of a bone crossed out Ghostbusters style. “No bone.” I wanted to keep one of those for myself, for use in non-McRib situations, but we gave them all away.

Not only was McDonalds giving us tshirts to give out, though, but also free coupons for McRibs. Why try so hard to promote a menu item you’re getting rid of? Only because you’re obviously not getting rid of it.

Thu December 1st, 2005 3:01 pm

Filed under Advertising & Marketing