Why Fast Food Companies are Rebooting Old Mascots
In May, McDonald's announced they were "reinventing" their (beloved?) Hamburglar mascot as a creepy hipster white dude. The move did not go over well. A few weeks later, KFC announced they were bringing back their (beloved?) Colonel Sanders, now played by "SNL" veteran Darrell Hammond, but with a more caricature-ish angle. This also did not go over well.
Independent of the negative reaction, what's interesting is why these multi-million dollar companies are going back to the well by reintroducing old mascots. The answer is quite simple. They're trying to win back customers with nostalgia.
If the moves reek of desperation, that's because the companies are desperate. Things aren't going well at the Golden Arches. McDonald's net income for the first quarter of 2015 dropped 32.6% worldwide. This comes after a rough end to last year as well, with 2014's fourth quarter net income falling 21%, after falling another 30% in the third quarter. In fact, they just decided to stop announcing monthly sales figures to the public. And as goes McDonald's, so goes the rest of fast food. (While KFC's sale numbers have held steady, Subway's are falling fast.)
There are many reasons why this sales dip is occurring. Chains with better reputations -- like Five Guys and In-N-Out -- are muscling into McDonald's long-dominated burger territory, and Chipotle continues to expand the availability of their burrito stylings. While the boom of trends like food trucks, single-item boutique restaurants, and farmers' markets may not seem to directly influence McDonald's sales, more options for the consumer means more slices of the profit pie taken from the once-dominant fast food chains.
Then again, it may not just be about competition, but the fact that menus at "classic" fast food chains have gotten stale. We've eaten enough Big Macs. We've had plenty of the Original Recipe fried chicken from KFC. You can conjure up the taste of a Whopper, a Taco Bell taco, or a Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger just by reading the words on a screen.
(Ironically, the consistency of their menus -- and that one could walk into a McDonald's anywhere in the world and reliably get what one is used to -- is what allowed the chain to reach global domination in the first place.)
So, rather than trying to "change things up" by completely shifting the tone of their ads, they're attempting to turn back the clock by reminding consumers of a simpler time. (For them, it was a time when families were lured into their restaurants, profits were at an all-time high, and this seemed like a bubble that would never burst.)
Nostalgia. It's all the rage these days.
Will it work? If the early response is any indication, nope. But even if that turns around -- most new things are immediately attacked on the Internet, after all -- they'll be received like anything whose only value is nostalgia. We'll look at it for a second, say, "Yeah, I remember," and maybe feel a slight ping of heartache for lost innocence. Then, it'll quickly be forgotten and we'll move onto the next thing.
Which is to say, don't be shocked if McDonald's and KFC try something else completely different next year once they realize how far trading on nostalgia actually goes.
