What can marketers learn from McDonald’s Travis Scott Meal? Fortune favors the bold

A Praytell Talent POV

Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation. The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.

- Guy Debord

An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.  

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.

- Gilles Deleuze

What’s wrong with this picture?

Nothing.

Obi-Wan heard a great cry ring out in the universe—then it was silenced.

A few iPhone models ago, arguments raged concerning artistic authenticity as it interfaced with commerce. The arguments appeared to subside—but the next wave of backlash was as certain as the tide coming in. Then the culture got distracted for what felt like seconds—and when we turned back to face it, the entire seascape of “authenticity” had evaporated as if it were never there.

For zoomers, budding influencers, striving social-native personal-brand-ers—it never was.

Travis Scott is the “hypest” person alive. Embarrassing adjective! Advertisers, like artists and actors, cannot be deterred by embarrassment; often, they are best served by doubling down on it.

The term “sellout” was already out of date half a dozen cultural epochs ago. What’s to sell? (Nothing.) Where is out? (Nowhere.) When the term “personal brand” was born, it was ridiculed into dominance. Now the concepts of the personal and the brand have merged—and branding is ubiquitously imperative.

As a result, the highest aspiration of our time is to scramble up the slopes of our cultural Olympus and capture the appearance of control over a major brand, or manage to build your own—as the Rihannas, Jenners, and Kardashians have done.

In a digital world where the role model is not artist but curator, you don’t seek to “Be like Mike”—but you might still seek to like like Mike. The McDonald's press release read, “For $6, you can eat just like Travis.” On Tinder, it’s understood that many of the people self-identifying as creative directors are lying.

In a dark time, we begin to see.

Travis Scott is not “family-friendly,” to use a tellingly dated phrase—one which is nonetheless still prized by advertisers who insist on shutting their eyes to present reality.

As a family-friendly newspaper had it: “Lyrics of a 2018 Scott hit called ‘Sicko Mode’ posted by Billboard.com contains not-safe-for-work words that begin with the letters s, h, p, m and b.” And yet: the only notable pushback the campaign received came, pitifully, from McDonald's franchise owners “concerned that Scott’s often profane lyrics don’t fit with the fast food giant’s family-friendly image.” (Any hint of conflict, of error, goes a long way. The pushback, if leaked purposefully, was brilliant.)

The answer to “Who cares?” used to be “No one who matters.” Now the answer is “Almost literally no one.” For franchisees, this is uncomfortable. For CMOs: you now have zero excuses not to get weird.

Rushing to explore uncomfortably new territory does not guarantee success, but failing to do so guarantees failure—and with “authenticity” obliterated, more than ever, fortune favors the bold.

David Ogilvy said that the best ideas begin as jokes. Screenwriters are instructed to make their endings both surprising and inevitable. Brands seeking growth in the aftermath of the Travis Scott Meal have one option: outdo McDonald's for surprising inevitability. Laugh harder than the McDonald's CMO is laughing today. Do something more adventurous than Bella Thorne joining OnlyFans—or another brand will.

Wait, you might say. Why him? What does Travis Scott have to do with McDonald’s? If you have to ask… in this case it’s a reasonable question; their connection is tenuous. If articulated with sufficient confidence, nonsense rhymes with exclusivity. After all: nothing is required to make sense anymore—much less marketing. Didn’t David Byrne already tell you?

The ideal posture is Reverse Mullet. Chaotic party in the front; stone-cold business sense in the back.

In the 70s, a Cadillac meant you’d done the things necessary to afford it. Aspiration in concrete form.

In the 80s, a Members Only jacket meant you knew the things necessary to want it. Aspiration in superficial form.

In the 90s, Air Jordans meant you’d seen the things necessary to want them. Aspiration in abstract form.

In the aughts, playing Tony Hawk meant you wanted to take a break from your body. Aspiration in virtual role-playing form.

In the early 2010s, using Kylie Jenner’s lip kit meant that you wanted to form your body to a celebrity’s ambition. Aspiration in literal role-playing form.

Today, ordering the Travis Scott Meal means that you want to take a break from scrolling long enough to buy a meme to put inside your body—right after you feed it to the feed, which eats first. You engulf the meme, which engulfs you. Aspiration: a blank slate. Anything goes; play reigns.

In absurdity, there is freedom.

It is possible to imagine ordering the Travis Scott Meal without a sense of humor? Therein lies its beauty.

SNL used to make fun of advertisers by ending their satirical ads with, “Because you’ll believe anything.” What would today’s satirical slogan be? “Because you won’t believe anything”? Too clever to be clever—and negated by the closest possible approximation to a satire of contemporary advertising: Because you will do anything. Hungry? Grab a Tide Pod.

We are so far past Steak-umms that if Steam-umms seems risky, you seem timid.

Social media has fallen drastically short of its promised potential as a two-way “conversation” between brands and consumers. McDonald's short-circuited this shortfall. To mimic their success, do something both minimalist and a bit daft—enough of both that people are compelled to make their own content.

In addition to web traffic, the promotion is boosting sales at McDonald’s—enough to boost Wall Street analysts’ bullishness on the Golden Arches.

Want these results? Your brand’s partnership needs to be a bit “out there.” When we say it in the deck, we’ll say “disruptive,” but what we mean is that to ~~stop any thumbs~~ in 2020 you need someone to whom the average person’s reaction is at least partially negative, defensive or confused. It’s not like you can afford The Rock, anyway.

“Influencer marketing” is just marketing now. Famous is good; unpredictable is better.

At “press time,” #TravisScottMeal has attracted 50MM views on TikTok—and the top performing content in the platform’s #CactusJack tag is literal youths ordering the meal IRL. (That hashtag has 216.6MM views.)

Your inspiration in 2021 cannot be Anchorman. Once the fourth wall is broken there is no repairing it. Think more, Being John Malkovich. Anything Andy Kaufman ever did. Etc.

That’s the logical next step in the arms race of marketing chaos. Imagine running a company today. Do you want a CMO who’s a steady hand on the tiller? Product, absolutely. Finance, naturally. Marketing?

CEOs in 2021 should want a CMO they’re a little afraid of.

Why Being John Malkovich? Because so few marketers have accepted, much less internalized, the real lesson of Denny’s Twitter: today, the inimitable strangeness of individual human consciousness is the only surefire weapon in the advertiser’s arsenal—even, or especially, when that individual is a hired freelance famous person.

A new book called History Has Begun explains our situation. Pessimistically speaking, there are no rules anymore. Optimistically speaking, there are no rules anymore. Ready to play?

Alex Howe is based in Brooklyn. As a college student two financial crises ago, Alex took intro to lit theory for his English major. He never got over it. Today he is a copywriter at Praytell.

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