You may have noticed a different logo of McDonald’s when you visited the fast food’s Philippine social media accounts on Thursday (March 8). As of press time, the golden arches still appear inverted when you use Facebook’s search box to look for McDonald’s Philippines’ page. It is not a glitch. It could be in line with an interesting campaign by McDonald’s in the U.S.
McDonald’s Lynwood, California store started the move to flip the golden arches logo of the brand to show a letter ‘W’ instead of the usual letter ‘M.’ Of course, this is just temporary and is being rolled out in observance of the International Women’s Day on March 8. This is the first time in the company’s history that this alteration of the logo was allowed.
Within the day, all profiles of McDonald’s across the social media will be displaying the upside-down logo. “This is to honor the extraordinary accomplishments of women everywhere and especially in our restaurants,” said McDonald’s Global Chief Diversity Officer Wendy Lewis. “From restaurant crew and management to our C-suite of senior leadership, women play invaluable roles at all levels and together with our independent franchise owners. We’re committed to their success.”
Over a hundred McDonald’s stores across the U.S. are participating in this unique gesture. During this time, the flipped golden arches would also appear on packaging of products as well as on crew members’ shirts and hats.
As expected, some bashers took this opportunity to criticize the brand. One Twitter user in the U.S. pointed out that by inverting the arches to stand for ‘women,’ reversing it back to letter ‘M’ would make it for ‘men’ forever. Others took the chance to call the company’s attention about supposed issues affecting its own employees, like inequality in pay and unattractive employee benefits.
What do you think of this odd marketing move?
