Boris Johnson’s endorsement of McDonald’s as a bona fide Olympic brand back fired when he extolled the nutritional values of the fast food giant and in the same sentence admitted it’s not to his tastes.
Speaking to the gathered media when asked about the heavy hand of Olympic sponsors Boris replied, “this is all just bourgeois snobbery about McDonald’s, it’s classic liberal hysteria about very nutritious, delicious food — extremely good for you I’m told — not that I eat a lot of it myself.”
Boris’s support of McDonald’s Olympic credentials proved however to be a massive PR gaff sending the fast food giant diving straight to the bottom of a brand reputation tracker monitoring Twitter sentiment toward the 25 official London Games sponsors.
Negative sentiment towards McDonald’s on Twitter gathered momentum immediately following Boris’s enthusiastic endorsement. Controversial comedian Frankie Boyle added to the frenzy when he tweeted his 820,000 loyal followers. “Don’t know how much sponsorship McDonalds paid for the Olympic mayor to be a fucking clown.” Needless to say Frankie’s followers responded enthusiastically re tweeting and adding their own comments to add to McDonald’s online marketing woes.
Boris didn’t stop there with his big food and drink brand damage assault. When asked what his message to the world will be from Friday’s event he said “I just hope everybody has a…”, unusually hesitant for words, he then blurted out quoting directly the lyrics of an old Coca Cola advertisement. “I’d just like to teach the world to sing.”
Shock horror Coca Cola is one of the other major sponsors of the Olympics, probably just coincidence 🙂
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