Oh, dear. McDonald’s — that small roadside fast food joint founded by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald in the 1940s — is in danger of losing money because we sassy, CSA-joining millennials are no longer interested in what the chain has to offer. Basically, McDonald’s has become your grandparents, calling and calling to talk about World War II and the invention of the Big Mac only to be sent straight to voicemail where they can’t even figure out how to leave a message.
The restaurant chain’s annual share holder meeting occurs this Thursday and CEO/OLD PERSON Don Thompson plans to devote a bulk of the day to discussing how the company can start pulling in more and more of our precious millennial bucks. USA Today looked to industry experts for a few suggestions on how McDonald’s might do this.
Create food that tastes…good? Sounds crazy to me, but you’re the experts, I GUESS.
• Embrace causes.
“Millennials care about social responsibility, so McDonald’s must, too,” USA Today writes. “Especially with its own employees. Some low-wage employees will be at McDonald’s annual meeting Thursday, pushing for higher wages — a cause many Millennials support.”
Nothing to add here. McDonald’s should definitely pay their employees decent wages. While they’re at it, they should also probably chill out with destroying the rainforest.
• Compete with fast-casual.
Poor, long suffering family joint McDonald’s is losing money to fast-casual restaurants like Chipotle, a Mexican grill chain once owned by corporate giant McDonald’s. You create your own monsters.
• Reinvent breakfast.
What? Millennials love breakfast. If anything, McDonald’s should extend it to last all afternoon, offer a special on bottomless mimosas, hire a mean/super beautiful Japanese hostess with an asymmetrical haircut who makes you feel bad about yourself and then watch the millennials line up like ants.
At least that’s how they do it in Brooklyn and it works crazy well.
• Fix the nutritionals.
Look, when I want to eat healthy, I’ll eat a head of cabbage. When I go to McDonald’s, it’s because I’m lookin’ to play fast and loose with my cholesterol. Play up the danger element, draw in the rebels.
The experts’ suggestions are well and good, but what’s really missing from all this advice is how uncool McDonald’s is being in all this. Doesn’t the chain remember anything from its sexy glory days when it was surrounded by hip young people who wore leather jackets and used phrases like don’t have a cow! and no sweat!? The only way McDonald’s got their attention was by not caring. Furthermore, we’re a generation defined by ironic detachment. Stop sweating us so hard, embrace being not cool and we might start being interested again.
Or they could start offering edible .gifs. That would probably work, too.
McDonald’s is pushing to get more Millennial savvy [USA Today]
Image via Getty.
