Not all of us have had the chance to wear the McDonald’s uniform behind the counter, but that doesn’t mean we can’t rock it down the runway.
Finnish brand Vain is working in tandem with McDonald’s Finland to repurpose the fast-food restaurant attire into a collection of 27 stylish pieces for the fashion-hungry to don in their free time.
Vain takes the iconic branding of the Golden Arches and the signature black, red, yellow, and blue uniforms and turns them into something worthy of wearing down the street, or to a McDonald’s themed party. The lineup includes jackets, dresses, button-downs, sweaters, and accessories reimagined in never-before-seen silhouettes of the fast-food chain’s uniforms.
It takes dozens of people, expensive robots, and fancy cameras to bring a fast food commercial to life. But they use real food on set, so they work against the clock to film each take before it starts to wilt. We visit The Garage in Brooklyn, New York, to see how the crew films advertisements for clients like Hershey’s, Pepsi, and Domino’s.
Some Angelino Heights residents say the filming of the latest “Fast and Furious” movie in their neighborhood is bringing nightly street takeovers and making them feel unsafe.
Fast food chains often operate differently in different countries: different menu items to fit local tastes, different names to fit local dialects, different promotions to appeal to a different audience. Last year, Wendy’s returned to the United Kingdom for the first time in over 20 years, and by last month, the burger chain opened their eighth British location in the hip London neighborhood of Camden. This time, however, Wendy wanted to make a lasting impression in an area known for music and fashion — and the resulting Emo Wendy has certainly captured the internet’s attention.
Originally part of a Camden street art mural — and now adorning the outside of the new Wendy’s — is a depiction of the chain’s iconic redhead but with what the brand calls a “flowing emo fringe” instead of her usual pigtails. The actual restaurant opened back on June 28, but photos of Emo Wendy have emerged as a social media meme in the last few days as more people have gotten a chance to snap pics of the restaurant’s exterior.
So what happened in Wendy’s life that made her switch her style? The whole thing is actually an advertising campaign. Back in June, Wendy’s teamed up with the ad agency VMLY&R and the artist platform Camden Open Air Gallery to design three new mascots that fit the Camden vibe. Three different looks were designed in total — punk, bouffant quiff, and emo — and Twitter followers were then asked to vote on which Wendy should be the face of the Camden location.
For years, fast-food enthusiasts have had a chip off their shoulders. Sometimes there’s too much ketchup on their French fry, rendering it a flabby mess. At other times, it’s barely there. And don’t get them started on the concept of double-dipping.
Heinz UK claims to have the perfect solution to end this fries-stration for good: ‘Spoon Friez’. As their name suggests, they’re fries in the shape of spoons.
According to the condiment maker, the mouths of spoons are just the right size to carry the perfect amount of ketchup for the ultimate eating experience. “Carbs in the shape of a spoon? Fry-nally,” the brand tweets.
LADBible reports that the company began dipping into (or scooped into?) the idea of making edible cutlery after a self-conducted survey that revealed 95% of consumers would rather not eat their fries if there was no sauce. The research also found that 84% were annoyed at how they couldn’t nail the perfect potato-to-ketchup ratio.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to find Spoon Friez at your favorite fast-food joint. Heinz only gave them away as part of a sweepstakes for National Fries Day, which falls on July 13 each year. The fact that that’s a Wednesday this year, and not a Friday (Fry-day, get it?), is kind of infuriating.
Staff at the rebranded fast-food chain scribbled out the McDonald’s logo on sauce packets with black pen, Reuters reported, with an image from the Agence France-Presse seemingly confirming this.
Vkusno & tochka, which Reuters translated as “tasty and that’s it,” opened 15 stores in and around Moscow on Sunday, including what was formerly McDonald’s flagship Russian restaurant in the city’s Pushkin Square.
The hurried rebranding shows how Govor has tried to strike a balance between operating restaurants that will satisfy customers as a substitute for McDonald’s and not violating the company’s trademarks.
“We don’t have the right to use some colors, we don’t have the right to use the golden arches, we don’t have the right to use any mention of McDonald’s,” Govor told Reuters.
The famous golden arches have been scrapped, and Vkusno & tochka has a new logo made up of just one dot and two lines — or a burger and two fries — which appear in the shape of a large “M.”
Oleg Paroev, who was named as the CEO of McDonald’s Russia in February, and who has continued his role as CEO of Vkusno & tochka, said the restaurant interiors would remain the same but all traces of the McDonald’s name would be removed, Reuters reported.
Reuters reported that the chain largely used plain white packaging for fries and burgers, plain white drink cups, and plain brown paper takeaway bags. This is also evident in some of the photos of products on Vkusno & tochka’s website.
Though some dishes look familiar, Vkusno & tochka has no plans to sell Big Macs and McFlurrys.
“These names, these brands, their appearance and production technology” are too directly related to McDonald’s, Paroev said, according to The Journal.
The new fast-food chain that will take over the 850 McDonald’s locations in Russia has debuted its new logo: two orange-yellow sticks representing french fries and an orange circle representing a hamburger against a green background.
On Thursday, the Sistema PBO company, which has managed the McDonald’s restaurant chain in Russia after the corporation left the country, confirmed to Russian state media agency TASS that it had selected a new logo.
McDonald’s, like nearly 1,000 other international companies, pulled out of Russia back in March during the first few weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After more than three decades of operation in the country, the fast-food chain initially suspended the operation of all of its Russian locations on March 14, before announcing a full withdrawal just two days later.
“The green background of the logo symbolizes the quality of products and service that our guests are accustomed to. The logo will be used in the advertising campaign that we are launching today,” a Sistema PBO spokesperson said, adding that a new name for the replacement chain has not been finalized yet.
McDonald’s said in a statement on March 16: “The humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, and the precipitating unpredictable operating environment, have led McDonald’s to conclude that continued ownership of the business in Russia is no longer tenable, nor is it consistent with McDonald’s values.”
The multinational corporation went on to sell its business to Russian businessman Alexander Govor for an undisclosed sum, although McDonald’s announced it would write off its net investment in the market by up to $1.4 billion.
As part of the deal, Govor agreed to keep on all employees “under equivalent terms” for at least two years and “de-Arch” the chain’s Russian locations. Because McDonald’s continues to retain its trademark in Russia, the new chain is forbidden from using “the McDonald’s name, logo, branding, and menu.”
Fast food restaurant brand Taco Bell is bringing back the Mexican Pizza, as announced by Doja Cat at Coachella, but what did the singer do to establish its return and how did she become the chain’s spokesperson?
Doja Cat’s debut Coachella stage was everything we wanted – and more. She brought out Tyga and Rico Nasty, and performed new song Vegas that will feature in Baz Luhrmann’s forthcoming movie Elvis.
What we didn’t expect was breaking news regarding the return of the Mexican Pizza at Taco Bell. The singer is known to be a loyal fan of the fast-food fave and has been campaigning for the item’s return since it was taken off the menu in 2020.
Let’s take a look at her perseverance for the sake of Mexican Pizza over the past year.
Doja Cat, a Taco Bell partner, announced the mouthwatering news at the weekend and the chain followed with a press release on Monday, stating the singer “literally dropped the mic with the hot news of the Mexican Pizza’s return this May”.
It wasn’t just Doja at the forefront of the Mexican Pizza movement, more than 200,000 fans signed a Change.org petition spearheaded by Krish Jagirdar, who called the item a “bridge to American culture for kids who grew up in immigrant households”.
The Mexican Pizza, which features refried beans and ground beef sandwiched between crispy tortillas and topped with melted cheese and tomatoes, will be available from 19 May.
The 200,000 signatures surely made a difference but would it have had the same impact without a passionate celeb at the forefront?
Taco Bell removed the fan favourite in 2020 as chains streamlined menus following the pandemic, while the packaging reportedly “accounted for more than seven million pounds of paperboard annually in the US”.
The Say So singer’s history with the chain dates to May 2021, when she tweeted her determination to bring back the pizza.
Taco Bell congratulated Doja Cat on her album release in June 2021 but never got back to her about the product. By September, an irritated Doja complained to Taco Bell.
“I want my Mexican Pizza back @tacobell why u quiet”, she tweeted.
Two hours later, the company hinted it was actually considering the Mexican Pizza’s return but all remained quiet until Doja asked for more information after Taco Bell featured one of her songs in a commercial.
By February 2022, the rapper was truly part of the Taco Bell team as she starred in its Super Bowl 2022 ad, The Grande Escape, covering Hole track Celebrity Skin.
The 26-year-old proved she could create music about anything with her viral ditty about the food item, although she forbade anyone to call it a jingle. Joking she was forced to make a song due to “contractual reasons”, she claimed she had tried to make the track bad but it came out pretty catchy and went viral on TikTok.
There you have it, Doja got the Mexican Pizza thanks to her perseverance and ability to create a tune Taco Bell couldn’t resist.
Success invites imitation, and there is little doubt that international QSR brand Kentucky Fried Chicken—or KFC if brevity is more your thing—has ruled the roost when it comes to tasty morsels of deep-fried poultry and sides. So many copycats have hatched over the years that KFC has decided to address the phenomenon again with a cheeky website called Chicken Stock.
Styled after popular stock photography websites, Chicken Stock offers free-to-use high-resolution images of KFC’s menu items. On Chicken Stock’s about page, the QSR brand explained that it had noticed many competitors using fuzzy, pixelated pictures of its signature chicken. Rather than let its food get poorly represented, they’re making available quality photography. KFC explains that “even though they [competitors] can borrow our pictures, they will never borrow our taste.”
It’s not the first time KFC has used copycats to remind folks of the real deal, made with a secret blend of 11 herbs and spices. In 2019, the brand ran its “Guys, we’re flattered” campaign that featured a clever poster composed of different imitators’ store signs arranged alphabetically, in addition to TV advertising.
While the Colonel takes no umbrage with all the Kentucky Fake Chickens, there is a limit, of course. In 2013, the brand threatened to take legal action against a Thailand restaurant with a trade dress styled after KFC’s that replaced Sanders with Adolf Hitler.
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