As usual, this story broke on Twitter as users and patrons in Japan began tweeting some eye-catching imagery of McDonald's new McFizz cups. So this new fizzy and sparkly drink is surely intended to cool you down but something potentially fiery happens once you finish the drink and take a peek. 👀
Okay that's awfully suggesting is it not? Those pixelated McDonald's logos are not actually on the cup, someone added those to the image to possibly spoof how Japanese porn pixelate men's genitalia (don't ask me why, not my area of expertise). But like anything out there nowadays we must take it with a grain of salt and investigate what is really happening here with these new McFizz cups. Could this be some perverted corporate joke or is this simply an illusion being perpetrated by the monstrous media?
By looks of McDonald's Japan's Twitter feed it appears that this was not the intended angle and depiction of these McFizz cups:
Okay so it's supposed to be a boy and girl kissing... But c'mon, does McDonald's really want us to think that at no point during planning, production or advertising that no one was like hmm wait a minute?
What makes things a bit more confusing is that the advertisement seen above from McDonald's Japan appears to show two separate cups where each cup has either a girl or a boy on it which is contrary to the cups seen in the further above image which shows that there is a girl and a boy on either side of the cup however at the end of the advert the empty cup does indeed show both the boy and girl on the same cup kissing.
Either way as a marketer I think it is genius to have some silly miscommunications like these because they only lead to free press (what we call Earned Media). When fellow social media users find ways to either surface or actually create controversy it can actually help brands get their new promotions out further and wider than they even expected. So kudos to McDonald's Japan and Twitter for exposing just how perverted we are.
If you're looking for a social media and/or marketing consultant or advisor then reach out to me directly at travis@travhawley.com