McDonald’s New Commercial Appeals to the Coveted “Gay French Teenager” Demographic
This is the new McDonald’s commercial that’s generating all the interest online. It’s called “Come As You Are”.
In it, a teenage boy sits in a McDonald’s, wistfully looking at his class picture and caressing it with his finger while talking to the obvious object of his affection on the phone. As his father approaches, he quickly hangs up and then listens to his dad tell him how much of a ladies’ man he was at his son’s age. The eventual reveal is that the son goes to an all boys school, so the object of his affection on the other end of the phone was another boy. That’s a twist ending worthy of M. Night Shyamalan.
It’s pretty bold of McDonald’s to air such an ad. The question is, is it really necessary? Did French homosexuals previously feel uncomfortable in McDonald’s? Either way, score one for MickeyDees for scooping up the huge teenage homosexual market in France.
The French website Yagg.com interviewed the brand director of McDonald’s France, Nathalie Legarlantezec, and got this explanation:
“We wanted to take a look at how French society is today. We’re very comfortable with the topic of homosexuality, there is obviously no problem with homosexuality in France today”. While the statement sounds a bit naive in a country where same sex couples cannot legally marry nor adopt, the idea was to give a positive image of the brand: “The point was not to show someone who is troubled, especially a teenager. We know it can be difficult for some people, but we wouldn’t have dared show someone who is struggling”.