Essay Sample on Golden Arches Brilliance: Analyzing McDonald's Branding and Video Advertisements

McDonald’s is one of the most renowned outlets for fast food world over. It is a trans-continental corporation despite its American Origin. Through its numerous advertisements, the company’s brand has been highly sold out across many countries. Its branding has molded its personality, services, and products they offer. Branding always demands consistency from an organization, something which has been demonstrated by McDonald's. Advertisements are meant to create images, designs, and colors that give a particular brand an outstanding look in the market amongst other competitors (Berger, 2012). The logo that is used by MacDonald’s is the Golden Arches, making the corporation so familiar with customers. Under this familiar logo/image there have been several selling slogans also well known as advertisement statements over different years in different countries to meet the diverse needs of the customers. The corporation has been running its advertisements both in print and televised commercials, radios, newspapers, billboards, and signage. This analysis focuses primarily on the video advertisement run by MacDonald meant to popularize its products and services corporately.

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MacDonald’s adverts contain a corporate image embedded in its outstanding Golden Arched, letter M logo with different slogans over time. So far, the company has used 23 slogans of advertisements in the United States of America alone. Since 2003 print adverts of MacDonald running on social media, billboards, and print platforms have featured a slogan “I’m Lovin’ it”. The slogan aims to enhance the customer’s love for various fast food products served by the corporation. It is a phrase adopted from “I’m Lovin’ It” song sung by Justine Timberlake, a famous American singer. MacDonald is using “I’m Lovin’ It” in its adverts and events they sponsor to gradually “portray warmth and a real slice of everyday life” but greatly create a desiring rapport with its customers ("Mc Donald's - I'm Lovin' it", 2020).

According to Berger (2012), the corporate image refers to the reputation of a firm among the customers important to its operations. It is always created through a wide range and scope of corporate popularization also known as advertisements. The content of the products in circulation by the same company will also form a particular image of the corporation based on clients’ expectations compared to what they are finally offered. MacDonald’s have created a corporate image through various and numerous advertisements for their fast food products.

Through its adverts, MacDonald’s image has become synthetic. This is to means that it is developed to meet particular needs. In many instances, public opinion has been collected, sorted, and refined to build the desired image outlook appealing to the market. The synthetic aspect of the image is constructed by a meta-image also broken down as the little images behind the main image. This has been achieved by the corporation’s advertisement slogan “what we are made of”, which has been running since 2008 to present. In this advert, the corporation determined to show to the public how genuine and credible their products are. Secondly, the corporation’s image is believable. This is why there are a lot of online orders and delivery of MacDonald’s fast foods across America. Even though we cannot feel, hear, or smell an image, they still influence our thoughts, actions, and feelings. Out of its numerous adverts, MacDonald’s depicts a narrative fidelity in its truthfulness concerning the different foods they offer. This has made the corporate believable and so outstanding among customers ("Mc Donald's - I'm Lovin' it", 2020).

Another attribute of MacDonald’s corporate image is that it is vivid and concrete. The firm ranked seven among the 100 most valuable brands in the US market in 2020 (Rankingthebrands, 2020). For so long, even amidst stiff competition, MacDonald has remained solid in the market and vivid in the services. It gained the concretive image of its operations from the slogan “Every time a good time” which was running from 1999. Both the physical and corporate image of MacDonald is simplistic. It deals in first foods; how simple its operations and services are. The golden arch of MacDonald’s is a powerful shorthand way of demonstrating a powerful influence on the market. However, the image is also ambiguous in some sense serving both multiple and unforeseen purposes. Instead of the normal letter M, the image is a formation of a Golden Arch, making a special appeal to the customers. This image is very popular and familiar therefore by beholding it, what rings in the mind is fast food, from baggers to chips among others. In a wider sense, MacDonald’s is having an outstanding reputation based on the customer’s perception of its services and products. This has resulted from numerous adverts the corporation has been running both in print and on television ads since its inception.

The advert in consideration herein (URL) is designed in a particular way to build the corporate image of MacDonald’s by promoting the firm’s recognition in the market. It contains visual symbols of love and graphics of the letter M golden arch accompanied by the “I’m Lovin’ It” song tracts in the background. In this sense, the advert is making a very powerful appeal to the targeted customers. This short clip composes of various images having different symbolic elements meant to suggest different messages but corporately build upon the firm’s corporate image. To achieve this, the persuasive power of these visual images is characterized by some basic elements. These elements portray particular meanings about the physiological and cultural orientations of our society.

This advert has excellent use of color, impacting people’s emotions and feelings hence informing their perception about MacDonald’s as a corporate. It has applied a red hue with moderate saturation. The color combination is primitive, simple, and uncomplicated. Red as a color always makes a loving appeal to the mind (Berger, 2012). This is marrying so perfectly with the slogan “I’m Lovin’ It”, that is to say, “I’m in Love with MacDonald” as a whole. This advert, therefore, promotes the corporate love for MacDonald’s thus building on its corporate image.

The graphical forms used in the advert attract attention and imputes influence upon the minds of the intended. It uses a combination of several, different dots meant to form an image in the minds of the viewers. It uses triangular and circular shapes helping to give the advert perfect direction. Balance in graphics is very important for physical and psychological influence on human perceptions which is always the primary target of any particular advert (Berger, 2012).

The graphical lighting enables the viewer to see the advert content functionally. This enables exposure of shape, texture, and theme color in use (Barbas, 2012). The lighting in this advert is flat, eliminating any possible shadows in the background. The lighting here creates curiosity in the mind of the viewers hence making a lasting image in the mind. The spatiality that exists between the golden arch and the golden heart-shaped flowery pigments on the graphical display attracts the viewer’s attention.

As it is all known to us, the movements in a visual image attract people’s eyes and communicate particular or varied messages to the mind (Berger, 2012). In this advert, there is a graphical movement as the golden heart-shaped flowers transition into the golden M-shaped arch. These movements make a long-lasting imprint in the viewer’s mind thus enabling them to remember and identify with it over and again. Through this, the advert has made it possible for the concrete construction of a corporate image for MacDonald’s firm.

In summary, to achieve a solid corporate image for any given organization or firm, there is a need to run well-articulated adverts. MacDonald has run numerous adverts in the past determined to popularize its fast food products and services. The “I’m Lovin’ It” video advert in particular has helped build a strong corporate image for MacDonald. The musical accompaniment of the advert is a particular pick, done by a popular musician Justine Timberlake trying to relate the fast food not only with the mind but also with the heart of customers. The articulated advert has a constructed reality representing the corporate image of MacDonald by affirming the synthetic, believability, simplicity, ambiguity, vivacity, and concrete image of the firm. The advert has built upon these elements of corporate image by carefully applying the right color, form, lighting, spatiality, and movement. As a result, an inscription of the firm’s image in the minds of the Americans has undoubtedly increased the popularity of MacDonald’s every time the advert appears on the television or computer screens.

References

Barbas, S. (2012). The Laws of Image. New Eng. L. Rev., 47, 23. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2183372

Berger, S., Wagner, U., & Schwand, C. (2012). Assessing advertising effectiveness: The potential of goaldirected behavior. Psychology & Marketing, 29(6), 411-421.

Mc Donald's - I'm Lovin' it. (2020). Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca5S85mhFbE&feature=youtu.be

Rankingthebrands.com. 2020. Mcdonald's Brand Ranking | All Brand Rankings Where Mcdonald's Is Listed!. [online] Available at: <https://www.rankingthebrands.com/Brand-detail.aspx?brandID=7> [Accessed 30 September 2020].