BurntFilm

Does anybody else find it interesting that McDonalds is the Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games? With buckets of cash a their side, Mcdonalds are able to pay for the best ad makers to convince people around the world that their brand equals fitness and sportsmanship.

It’s interesting to look around the world at the different advertisements that McDonalds have produced. Each can be seen to reflect that country’s social values, often how they see themselves as a country. The Olympic ads often try to convey some sort of national pride in the country whilst trying to sell you burgers.

McDonalds will always show a dominant Social Value, often one of National Pride or a feeling of being connected to the world. These are usually the same social values embedded into the coverage of teh Olympics Games or perhaps the Olympic Games themselves.

Australia

Australia’s ad is a simple one, but one with many inherent social values. The ad depicts Australians of all kinds listening and watching a track race on TV where the Australian (we aren’t told who) finally wins the race.

Australians are passionate about sport.

The Social Value that Australians are sports mad could be sen as a Traditional Social Value, as it has been around for a long time. The Melbourne Cup horse race is called “The Race that Stops a Nation”. There is a lot of money and time put into sport in this country and “Aussie Rules” football is increasingly popular.

Australians are proud of their Sports Men and Women

McDonalds in the ad makes no mention of any names, only countries in the track race that all of Australia are following. Two things are interesting in the ad. The first is that it is following a running race. Since many Australians win medals in the pool, that would have been the obvious choice. Also, Australia won no medals at all in the Track and Field at the Athens Olympics. The other fact, that this is a woman’s race gives away the fact that McDonalds is relying on the pride that the nation felt when Kathy Freeman won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

America

America embraces other cultures.

It’s interesting to note that neither of Americas ads shown here are about winning, rather both of them are about enjoying time with other people and being “friendly”. This could be seen as a backlash against the social values Americans were holding up until recently. With a conservative government in power in involved in a war that many Americans now believe was wrong, America may be trying to convince themselves that they are now a different society.

China

China is proud of it’s cultural heritage.

Another ad that has no actual Olympic events in it, but instead showcases Kung Fu. Also it shows Kung Fu in two distinct styles. With the leaping of the buildings, we are seeing the influence of the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Tiger”, a highly successful export of their culture. Also, the scene is very similar to one that is on “Kung Fu Panda”, a film not made by them but by Hollywood.

China, still a communist country, is eager to play a role on the world stage, and is proud when their culture is looked on favorably by the rest of the world, especially America.

Israel

Israel distrust Americans.

Shown here with a similar ad, Israel’s Olympic ad is very U.S. centric. It shows U.S. as stout, evil and militaristic. In the other ad, it shows Israel itself as youthful and modern.

Brazil

Brazil take football very seriously

Apparently the only thing better than winning at football is a Happy Meal!

This post is tagged advertisements, america, australia, beijing, brazil, china, israel, mcdonalds, Media, media studies, olympics, Social Values