Commodifying Loss: How McDonald’s Used Loss to Sell Fish Sandwiches
Introduction
In 2017, McDonald’s released a British commercial in which a boy repeatedly asks his mother questions about his deceased father. The mother lovingly gives the child answers that contrast the boy’s own personality and character traits. For example, the mother tells the boy that his father always dressed sharply as the boy pulls up his baggy pants and looks down at his dirty shoes. She then tells him that his father had a way with women as the boy smiles at girls who quickly look away. The boy is visibly disappointed that he is so unlike his deceased father. In the end, however, the boy finds something he has in common with his father. They share a love for Filet-O-Fish sandwiches from McDonald’s. The music swells as the mother smiles warmly at her boy. Though McDonald’s meant to receive positive feedback from this commercial, the 90 second advertisement met great objection from viewers.
The purpose of this paper is to use semiotic analysis to examine McDonald’s tactics in creating this advertisement. This paper will first provide theoretical framework to establish a language for semiotic analysis. Then, this paper will use that language to analyze the commercial, its intended meaning, and how the meaning came across to audiences. We end with a question: In which instances does society find it acceptable for a company to commodify loss in advertisements?
Theoretical framework
In analyzing this commercial, it is important to have a language with which to discuss the multiple, complex factors of it. Though the commercial may seem rather straightforward to some, it was met with great objection, meaning its message is complex. Furthermore, it is important for us as consumers to be able to analyze the media that surrounds us.
The language with which media analysts analyze texts is called semiotics. Media critic Arthur Berger expounds on semiotics, describing it as a language of signs that may be used to examine how meaning is created in media texts. Semiotics can be used to examine a multitude of media texts, whether it be films, advertisements, art, literature, or other forms of media content. (Berger, 2005). For the purpose of this paper, semiotics will be utilized to examine and critique the controversial McDonald’s advertisement.
According to Stuart Hall, a notable semiotician and media analyst, when looking at a text (in this case, the text is a television commercial), a media critic can analyze its message by examining two important factors. These factors are what he calls denotation and connotation (Hall, 1980). In his article “Encoding/decoding,” Hall describes these two important terms as follows:
The term ‘denotation’ is widely equated with the literal meaning of a sign: because this literal meaning is almost universally recognized, especially when visual discourse is being employed, ‘denotation’ has often been confused with a literal transcription of ‘reality’ in language—and thus with a ‘natural sign,’ one produced without the intervention of a code. ‘Connotation,’ on the other hand, is employed simply to refer to less fixed and therefore more conventionalized and changeable, associative meanings, which clearly vary from instance to instance and therefore must depend on the intervention of codes. (p. 132, 133)
In other words, denotation is the literal, intended meaning of a text, and in this case will be used to examine McDonald’s intentions with the commercial. Connotation, however, is what that meaning is associated with, or what it can be interpreted as. It may be helpful to think of denotation as the signifier and connotation as what is signified.
Christopher Campbell exemplifies how a media critic should approach textual analysis using Hall’s popular philosophy of denotation and connotation. In “Commodifying September 11: Advertising, Myth, and Hegemony,” Campbell examines a Budweiser commercial intended to “honor” the September 11 attack shortly after it occurred, claiming that the connotation of the advertisement is less innocent. Campbell, however, uses the words “preferred reading” in lieu of denotation and “negotiated view” in lieu of connotation:
While the commercials may have been designed to sell products or encourage consumerism (the “preferred” reading), there was a larger recognition within the advertising industry and among its critics that 9-11 advertising could be seen as exploiting the tragedy (a “negotiated” view). (p. 60)
Campbell’s example shows how denotation (the “preferred” reading) and connotation (the “negotiated” reading) differ and why that difference is important to textual analysis as well as an audience’s interpretation of a message.
Sut Jhally, a well-known media critic, provides us with another example of using semiotic language to engage with media texts. In Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse,Jhally calls advertising “the dominant storytelling force of our time,” establishing the importance of his analysis. Jhally continues to explain advertising’s power to create a consumer mindset that leads to “an endlessly accelerating cycle of consumption that is literally pushing the planet to the brink of collapse.” (2017). Jhally identifies the denotation of advertisements as the intention of selling a product that will benefit consumers’ lives. The connotation, however, is that advertising is leading to toxic consumerism that is draining our planet of resources and pushing us toward an apocalypse.
By employing semiotics and digging deeper into media’s basic interpretations, audiences can be actively engaged with content. If audiences are not engaged in consuming content, they are passively viewing it and allowing corporations to easily feed them whatever message that corporation wishes.
Using Hall and Campbell’s texts as guidelines, one can employ semiotics and conduct textual analysis on this critical level. Much like the Budweiser commercial Campbell analyzes and the advertising mindset Jhally critiques, the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish commercial can be viewed from both a denotative and a connotative level in order to fully examine the intentions and effects of the text.
Before looking at the McDonald’s message in its advertisement, it is helpful to understand how important advertising is and, thus, why we should analyze it. In Killing Us Softly 4Jean Kilbourne, renowned for her work on images of women in advertising, discusses an advertisement’s ability to imbed itself in the human brain, “Advertising’s influence is quick, it’s cumulative, and for the most part, it’s subconscious.” Kilbourne continued to explain that only 8% of an ad’s message is received consciously while the rest is worked over in the brain. In this way, advertising subconsciously affects us, creating an environment that, as Kilbourne said, “We all swim in as fish swim in water” (2010).
Thus, when a company like McDonald’s creates an advertisement, it is sending a message that consumers will absorb without even knowing it. So, why analyze a Filet-O-Fish commercial? Because whatever the message, it is not just something that passes us by, it lives within our psyche and contributes to our thoughts and actions more than we may ever know; therefore, we analyze so that we are not passively accepting what messages are put into our society.
Denotative analysis
To understand the denotative level of a text, one must first examine the object of the advertisement. At the most basic level, the object of the McDonald’s commercial was to simply to sell more McDonald’s food in order to make more money. Like most advertisements, McDonald’s put their brand in people’s minds by showing an advertisement that people would see and absorb both consciously and subconsciously.
In Race/Gender/Class/Media 3.0: Considering Diversity across Audiences, Content, and Producers, author Rebecca Ann Lind discusses framing, or how we make sense of media by recognizing familiar themes (2013, p. 5). When a company creates an advertisement, that company has the opportunity to frame it in a certain way so that audiences receive the denotative meaning as the company intends.
Thus, on a deeper level, McDonald’s was attempting to frame the commercial in a way that would associate the brand to family values and connectedness among family members. This is a common theme in many commercials, as brands usually want to appeal to a person’s values. In the commercial, the young boy and his mother had an obvious bond that led them to be kind and caring toward each other. The boy and the mother also reminisced about his deceased father with a bittersweet tone. McDonald’s wanted audiences to be touched by the commercial and the storyline of a family who loves each other, even after death. In this commercial, McDonald’s wanted audiences to continue to associate the McDonald’s brand with the warmth and sweetness they hoped audiences would feel from the advertisement. Like many other advertisements, this one targeted audiences’ emotions.
Connotative analysis
Unfortunately for McDonald’s, audiences did not react to the commercial as the company had hoped they would. One tweet from Tony Richman (@TonyLRichman) exemplifies viewers’ reaction to the commercial. He said, “New #McDonalds advert, cynically using the story of a kid’s dead dad is trashy beyond belief. Who needs 2 parents when you have McNuggets?” (May 12, 2017).
Richman was not the only one who did not receive this commercial in the manner in which McDonald’s had intended it. Dean Logan (@Deano1739) tweeted, “Dad’s dead, but a tasty fillet o fish will make things right. Who. Approved. This.” (May 16, 2017).
So many people were vocal in their complaints that McDonald’s felt the need to respond. Ultimately, the negative feedback resulted in McDonald’s pulling the commercial from the air and issuing an apology: “It was never our intention to cause any upset. We are particularly sorry that the advert may have disappointed those people who are most important to us—our customers” (McDonald’s, 2017).
Rather than viewing the commercial as a reminder of McDonald’s relatable values and delicious food offerings, audiences saw the commercial as a cheap, exploitative move that insulted people who had lost a loved one. In this way, audiences accused McDonald’s of commodifying familial loss in order to make money off of fish sandwiches. McDonald’s denotation clearly did not match the audience’s connotation.
In order to continue discussing this commercial, it can be helpful to understand the terms “signifier and “signified.” An important aspect of semiotics, signifier and signified deal with how an audience processes a message. The signifier is a word, and what it means is signified. Berger explains how words (signifiers) and their meanings (signified) are merely social constructs:
The relationship between the signifier and signified- and this is crucial- is arbitrary, unmotivated, unnatural. There is no logical connection between a word and a concept or a signifier and signified, a point that makes finding meaning in texts interesting and problematic.” (p. 8)
Ultimately, what an audience takes away from a message (signified) can be completely different from the intent of a creator’s content (signifier). Thus, although many people were involved in the production of the commercial and nobody saw a significant enough problem to halt the release of the commercial, audience members saw the commercial in a much darker light. Audiences saw McDonald’s signifying that a deceased parent and spouse was something that could be utilized as a way to sell fast food.
McDonald’s is not the only mega corporation to have received extremely negative feedback from a commercial intended to associate its brand with positive values. In 2017, Pepsi released its controversial “Jump In” commercial in which Kendall Jenner joins a diverse crowd as they happily walk down a street in protest. At the end, Jenner offers a can of Pepsi to a police officer who happily accepts and takes a sip. The commercial ends by showing the words, “Live Bolder, Live Louder, Live for Now.”
In “Commodifying the Resistance: Wokeness, Whiteness and the Historical Persistence of Racism,” Campbell notes that commercials directed at millennials, such as Pepsi’s “Jump In” ad, are loaded with political messages as a way of selling products. “The millennial era seems to be one in which marketers believe they can tap into the Resistance—the progressive, anti-Trump political movement that embraces racial, gender and environmental activism—to sell products” (2019, p. 3).
This commercial caused tremendous controversy and mockery. Like McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish commercial, the general public did not seem to absorb the message the way Pepsi had intended.
While audiences did not receive McDonald’s nor Pepsi’s advertisements in the way the companies had hoped, there are certainly examples of commercials not unlike the Filet-O-Fish one that have received positive feedback by similarly playing to audiences’ emotions. Campbell’s example of the September 11 Budweiser advertisement, for example, used a national tragedy to promote a brand of beer. This commercial, however, was received generally well by audiences.
Also, for example, arguably the most famous 2020 Superbowl commercial was Google’s “Loretta” advertisement. In this advertisement, Google played on audiences’ emotions by implying that, through various services, Google could help an elderly man remember his deceased wife, Loretta. While this commercial received widespread positive feedback, we must ask, how is it different from the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish commercial? Why were audiences receptive to Google’s message and not McDonald’s when both companies commodified loss of a loved one?
The sweet music, the bittersweet tone and the movie-like plot of this commercial could certainly be seen as heartwarming by some, but the backlash far outweighed the benefits of this British McDonald’s commercial. Though McDonald’s had hoped to appeal to viewers’ values, the son’s relationship with his deceased father was not something audiences wanted to see exploited by a major fast-food corporation. Pulling the commercial and apologizing was all McDonald’s could do to in an attempt to save face once viewers called the company out for commodifying pain and loss.
Conclusion
As we have seen, advertisement is critical in today’s consumer society. Jhally even calls advertising “the dominant storytelling force of our time” (2017). It is all around us and impacts our society in ways far beyond the superficial. By being actively engaged and media literate consumers, we may prevent media from easily molding our minds and implanting whatever message it wants.
As seen from scholars such as Campbell, Hall and Jhally, an effective way of analyzing media is to use the language of semiotics, examining media texts from a denotative and a connotative view. In this way, we may understand the intentions of a text as well as how the text actually appears to its audiences.
In the case of the British McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish commercial, McDonald’s hoped to associate itself with family values in order to sell more fast food and advance its brand. However, audiences rejected this reading and instead were outraged that McDonald’s would use a cheap method of commodifying loss in order to sell sandwiches.
Understanding advertisements from both denotative and connotative levels may help audiences become more media literate in order to prevent them from being easily susceptible to corporations’ advertisement messaging. Though some advertisements (such as Google’s “Loretta” Superbowl commercial) get away with playing to audience’s emotions, the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish commercial did not fool audiences into connecting with its message. So, for media critics, the question remains: In what instances is it acceptable for a corporation to commodify loss?
References
Berger, A. A. (2005). Media Analysis Techniques(Third Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Campbell, C. P. (2003). Commodifying September 11: Advertising, myth and hegemony. In S. Chrmak, F.Y. Bailey, & M. Brown (Eds.), Media representations of September 11 (pp. 47-66). Westport, Conn: Praeger.
Campbell, C.P. (2019). Commodifying the Resistance: Wokeness, Whiteness and the Historical Persistence of Racism. In C. P. Campbell, L. S. Coleman (Ed,), Media, Myth, and Millennials: Critical Perspectives on Race and Culture (p. 3, 12-13). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Deano1739 (2017, May 16). “Dad’s dead, but a tasty fillet o fish will make things right. Who. Approved. This.” [Twitter Post]. Retrieved from https://www. businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-pulls-dead-dad-ad-2017-5.
Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Wills (eds.), Culture, Media, Language,London: Hutchinson, pp. 128-138.
Jhally, S. (Producer). 2017. Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse (video). Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation.
Kilbourne, J. (Speaker). 2010. Killing Us Softly 4(video). Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation.
Lind, R.A. (2013). Race/Gender/Class/Media 3.0: Considering Diversity across Audiences, Content, and Producers. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, pp. 5.
McDonald’s (2017). “It was never our intention to cause any upset. We are particularly sorry that the advert may have disappointed those people who are most important to us—our customers." [Apology statement]. Retrieved from
https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/17/news/mcdonalds-advertisement-dead-father/index.html?sr=twCNN051717mconalds-
advertisement-dead-father0439PMVODtopLink&linkId=37692283
TonyLRichman (2017, May 12). “New #McDonalds advert, cynically using the story of a kid’s dead dad is trashy beyond belief. Who needs 2 parents when you have McNuggets?” [Twitter Post]. Retrieved from https://www.today.com/news/mcdonald-s-ad-slammed-using-child-bereavement-sell-filet-o-t111590