I’m sure most of you have seen the video of McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski doing a “taste test” of the fast food chain’s newest burger. Or as he likes to call it: the “product.”
Watching that video, I can confidently say that this man has never had a McDonald’s burger before and looked visibly appalled by it. Which, let’s be clear, is absolutely fine. Your body will probably thank you for it. But then why film a video about it?
And if you do film a video, how does nobody in the social media team notice how ridiculous the whole thing looks? Whether it’s the facial expressions, the mouse-sized bite, or the way he talks about how to “attack” the “product.” It’s a bizarre watch.
And it wasn’t just customers and random people on the internet who picked up on that rather peculiar performance. Several other fast food CEOs took the opportunity to, first, take a dig at McDonald’s and, second, show some actual love for their own burgers.
Whether it was Burger King’s Tom Curtis being filmed while making his own meal in a restaurant kitchen, or the CEO of A&W mocking Kempczinski’s corporate word choices while indulging his burger, the whole industry suddenly joined in. The fast food CEOs (or respective marketing teams) discovered their sense of humour overnight and didn’t let that chance pass.
What also didn’t help was the follow-up “tasting” video with Kempczinski, possibly in response to the backlash and ridicule from the first one. This time he talks about beef notes, tempered cheese and the visual appeal of a Big Mac.
It’s a $5 burger in a paper box that people eat in their cars, for God’s sake.
It’s certainly not a great look for the company when even the CEO, who earns roughly $18 million a year, struggles to convincingly pretend he enjoys the company’s own food.
But let me throw something out there.
What if the whole thing was a stunt from the beginning?
What if someone noticed Kempczinski’s disgust and decided to lean into it? Or what if he actually did enjoy that “product” for lunch with great passion and they just capitalised on his acting skills?
I’m thinking of something similar to the Sydney Sweeney situation. Relatively harmless, but just controversial and awkward enough to generate attention. And as we all know in marketing, attention is attention — whether it’s good or bad.
So the real question is: did we all just get played by McDonald’s?
We’ll probably never know. But ultimately everyone got something out of it. McDonald’s got attention, the other fast food chains got attention by parodying it, and the rest of the internet got something to laugh about for a few days.
Interestingly, since the video was published the stock has actually declined by about 4%. Whether the burger tasting had anything to do with that is… less clear.
