If you were hoping for a détente in the Breakfast Wars, this will come as bad news.
Following its real “Ronald McDonald” ads in March, Taco Bell continued its direct attack on McDonald’s yesterday with a new spot that calls the McDonald’s Egg McMuffin dated — not unlike 80s hair and Loverboy. The Taco Bell breakfast waffle taco, meanwhile, represents the future, like smartphones and tight jeans. The spot ends with the tagline “Move on from your old McDonald breakfast with Taco Bell’s exciting new breakfast menu.” The video has gotten more than 40,200 views on YouTube since yesterday.
McDonald’s hasn’t retaliated yet, as it did in response to Taco Bell’s initial anti-McDonald’s ads when it put up a Facebook post featuring Ronald McDonald petting a chihuahua along with the line, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
What is suspicious though, is that on April 3, before Taco Bell’s new spot aired, McDonald’s shared a TBT post on Facebook featuring the Egg McMuffin with Bootsy Collins sunglasses on, along with the copy, “Groovin’ since ’72. You dig? #TBT #EggMcMuffin.” Seems a little too perfect a set up for the Taco Bell ad, doesn’t it?
We all know real-time marketing is the big thing these days, but obviously the new Taco Bell spot — with a guy singing about how it’s time to get with the times with a Taco Bell waffle taco — wasn’t made in just the four days after the McDonald’s “throwback Thursday” Facebook post. If Taco Bell and McDonald’s aren’t both in on this contrived “Breakfast Wars” together, then it’s one hell of a coincidence.
More in Marketing
Snapchat sunsets its AR Enterprise division as it vows to give advertisers AR tools
“We are not diminishing the importance of AR,” he said. “In fact, we are strategically reallocating resources to strengthen our endeavors in AR advertising and to elevate the fundamental AR experiences provided to Snapchat users.”
Why Activision Blizzard Media is using an Attention Measurement Scorecard to raise marketers’ confidence in gaming
In Q4 of this year, Activision Blizzard Media is launching in beta a new measurement tool dubbed the Attention Measurement Scorecard. The goal: to raise brands’ and marketers’ confidence in in-game advertising.
With Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour movie, Cinema advertisers hope for a Q4 boost
The concert film will likely help build on cinema advertising’s momentum after Barbenheimer.