McDonald’s Brazil removes social distancing logo after flak

McDonald’s Brazil was questioned by netizens over the logo for leveraging the pandemic in a campaign as well not walking the talk, with their own employees working during a pandemic.

Many brands in India as well as globally have tinkered with their logos and communication to highlight the importance of social distancing. One of them is McDonald’s. In India, they put up a creative with extra spaces between lovin’ and it in their tagline. McDonald’s Brazil, however, took things further by distancing the golden arches of the logo. This did not go down with people, including US Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Two main points of contention in the chaos generated by the logo change were the brand’s alleged intention of leveraging the pandemic in a campaign and not giving sick leaves to its employees. The latter was brought up in a tweet by Sanders.

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McDonald’s India’s creative had a similar communication, but the logo wasn’t ‘distanced’, only the tagline.

In the wake of the flak, all the communication around the modified logo has been reportedly taken down by the brand in Brazil. However, it continues to be live on the Instagram page of McDonald’s Pakistan.

Earlier in 2018, McDonald’s had flipped its logo for Women’s Day, receiving similar flak. It is interesting how brand communication of big corporations is continuously kept in check by people, criticised when required. This also places a greater burden on brands to be careful about such communication, opting for a deeper litmus test on public sentiment.

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