McDonald’s knew what it was doing all along with this week’s ‘Burgergate’

The last, best, and only story you need to read about the McDonald’s CEO burger bite that was heard ’round the world.

By now, anyone who follows major brands has seen it or heard of it: The small bite that went ‘round the world.

McDonald’s CEO and chairman Chris Kempczinski recently posted a video of himself on Instagram trying the brand’s newly launched Big Arch burger. It was basically the golden arches version of a dorky corporate unboxing. 

When he got the Big Arch into his grips, he took a reasonable, if small, bite and said, “I love this product. It is so good.”

Cue the online mockfest. 

Kempczinski didn’t deliver the news like an amphetamine-laced nano-influencer. No, here he was eating like some quarter-zip normie on a first date. On a scale of 1-10 in executive public performance, if one is Bank of America’s 2006 adaptation of U2’s “One” and 10 is Steve Jobs unveiling the iPhone, this was somewhere in the gaping maw of middleground. 

It’s amazing how a seemingly small moment—a lo-fi social post—can blow up bigger than most ambitions for a major ad campaign. The earned media value here for McDonald’s is easily in the millions, which is exactly why so many CEOs from its fast food rival brands fervently jumped on the moment as an opportunity to soak in some of that sweet, sweet attention with their own take on the big bite. 

As the video spawned cringe-inducing knock-offs from the CEOs of Burger King, Wendy’s, and others, it entered the natural cycle of online brand virality: A video goes viral; it gets mocked; rival brands capitalize on the moment, squashing any last trace of organic attention; people turn on the pile-on brands; suddenly, the original video starts to look brilliant.

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