patrick.net

It might be a Bevis and Butthead prank, or it might be photoshopped.

An upside down golden arches is a sign they are under dire distress.

They probably ran out of french fries

It's real. Publicity stunt if you ask me. We'll see if it's worth it. My job in college was manufacturing signs. Flipping that is no small undertaking. At a bare minimum you're looking at $5k just to get it that way. Then to flip it back, another $3k. Might pay off, and maybe corporate is footing the bill. But throwing out $8k plus as a franchisee might not be the smartest move. That's a lot of advertising dollars that have provable track records instead of doing this.

Women’s day, it’ll flip back to M tomorrow.

Publicity stunt by McDonald’s. Instead of effort and special offers they just flipped few signs upside down.

WookieMan says

It's real. Publicity stunt if you ask me. We'll see if it's worth it. My job in college was manufacturing signs. Flipping that is no small undertaking. At a bare minimum you're looking at $5k just to get it that way. Then to flip it back, another $3k. Might pay off, and maybe corporate is footing the bill. But throwing out $8k plus as a franchisee might not be the smartest move. That's a lot of advertising dollars that have provable track records instead of doing this.

8k from the advertising budget for a publicity stunt gone viral

Sounds like a good deal

errc says

8k from the advertising budget for a publicity stunt gone viral

Sounds like a good deal

I agree to an extent. They're also getting negative backlash about it. Any publicity is good publicity, but it doesn't always work out that way. I think this was in multiple locations as well. Could be wrong on that.

That said, depending on the union, you're looking at $2k just to get a crane operator out there. Then take the face of the sign off, get a welder in there to add support on the arches. Then a lift to get another person (or same welder) up on top to add the new mounts to the existing sign for the new anchor points. And I've likely grossly under estimated the cost. Just the initial flip is $10k and could be as high as $20k. 15 years ago the company I worked for had to pay $2k for the crane and operator for just a quick 2 hour lift to get a huge sign on a flat bed semi. An easy operation. It could be $4-6K now just for the crane.

McDonald's isn't as cherished as it once was. Not sure this was a good move on their part, even if it does or is going viral. Sounds like it's actually pissing off some women. It's bringing up that they pay people shitty. I'd actually bet that the typical McDonald's customer is also offended and is probably saying "just make me a fucking burger, I don't care about women's rights." I'd say this one goes in the loss column for stunts, but I could be wrong.

RafiMaas says

WookieMan says

That said, depending on the union, you're looking at $2k just to get a crane operator out there

Mc'ds is probably covering the costs not the franchise owner. Not that you didn't already think that

I'd hope they are paying. Just not sure this is the best publicity stunt given current times and emotions. It doesn't bother me and I don't eat McDonald's except for the occasional egg mcmuffin 2 times a year.

But McDonald's attempting to support some movement is kind of laughable. They're quite literally one of the worst employers in the country. Of course they have a function and people get paid and can learn some sort of skill. But they are today's sweatshop essentially.

I don't think a whole lot of people look to McDonald's for moral and life direction (no one here is saying this), yet it appears they believe they're some sort of standard bearer for woman's rights by doing this. Just make burgers and get better in house advertising or higher a better marketing firm. This just seems stupid to me, even though I'm sitting here talking about it. I don't think this sells more burgers and very likely just pisses off all sorts of people and will end up with some segment of society boycotting them.

Saw this yesterday, and just snorted when I heard it was for women’s rights. So weak, so irrelevant. They could have saved a lot of money by just putting a pussy hat on the damn thing.