What Advertising is Really About

What comes to mind when you think of advertising? Perhaps a commercial with an annoying soundtrack like Intel’s. Or over the top creativity like Mac vs. PC. Or funny commercials with messages delivered by Old Spice Man and E-Trade Baby. How about graphic images of diseased lungs, corpses and rotten teeth? That’s what the federal government wants you to see on each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States.

The images are part of a new campaign announced by the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services yesterday to reduce tobacco use, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths per year. "Some very explicit, almost gruesome pictures may be necessary," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in an interview with The Associated Press. "This is a very, very serious public health issue, with very, very serious medical consequences," such as cancer, heart disease, strokes and lung diseases. At least 30 other countries already require graphic warnings, including some, like Brazil, that often go even further than the proposed U.S. messages. Canada, which became the first country to require more graphic warnings in 2000, has seen a significant drop in smoking. The images will be in new warning labels that will take up the top half of a pack — both front and back — of cigarettes; contain color graphics depicting the negative health consequences of smoking, and constitute 20 percent of advertisements. Will these graphic warnings change habits in the U.S.?

Advertising can be defined as a form of communication intended to persuade an audience to take some action. Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased consumption of their products through branding, which involves the repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate related qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers. Cigarette advertising has been banned in the U.S. for decades so consumers have to come up with attributes and benefits cigarettes offer them. Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences. But until now advertising has become synonymous with interruption and surprise turned into a game of chance where the audience is expected to be exposed to the message –you may mute the TV and miss a commercial, change the station on the radio or skip an ad in a magazine. The new graphic labels will accompany the product and go wherever the consumer goes at all times. Unlike commercials that can be muted to be avoided, consumers will not be able to escape the message. They will see the graphic images every time they reach for a cigarette, becoming in effect, a captive audience. For the sake of the public’s health let’s hope this campaign affects the intended behavior.

Mystique as a Marketing Tactic

Alan Klein's obsession with the McRib began when he was growing up on a hog farm in South Dakota. The 28-year-old meteorologist, who now lives in Minnesota, justified his craving by saying that eating McRibs supported the family business. Three years ago, he launched the McRib Locator where visitors can inquire about and report McRib sightings. Mr. Klein says he gets 300 to 400 hits a week. On Sunday, the site's U.S. map showed a cluster of sightings in the Chicago and Detroit areas. The latest: New Baltimore, Mich.

Before traveling to visit his parents in Nebraska last winter, Jeremy Duensing consulted what he always checks before a trip: the "McRib Locator" website. To his delight, he found a McDonald's restaurant near Omaha that, unlike most of the burger chain's 14,000 U.S. restaurants, had the McRib on its menu. He bought six of the pork sandwiches, ate one right away at the restaurant, and carried the rest home to Burnsville, Minn., in an ice-packed cooler.

The McRib actually has nothing to do with ribs. It's a boneless pork patty molded into the shape of a rib slab and adorned with pickles, onions and barbecue sauce on a bun. The sandwich made its debut in 1981. But McRibs are almost never available at all McDonald's restaurants at the same time. Instead, the Oak Brook, Ill., company offers them in different cities at different times, rarely for longer than a few weeks. The sandwich's elusiveness has created a fan base of people who go to considerable lengths to munch on a McRib. Ryan Dixon of Burbank, Calif., once drove 10 hours to Medford, Ore., after hearing a McDonald's there was selling the sandwich. On Nov. 2, for the first time in 16 years, McDonald's Corp. will offer the McRib at outlets across the U.S., but even then, only for six weeks or so. "It doesn't sell well all year long because people get tired of it," says McDonald's USA President Jan Fields.

Derided by some as "mystery meat," the McRib has served as the inspiration for a Simpsons episode about a "Ribwich," and appeared on David Letterman Top 10 lists and in the movie Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, in which a character cites the McRib as an example of African-American Irish culture. Nearly 300 Facebook groups are devoted to the sandwich, including "Bring back the McRib, Please," with more than 500 members. A McDonald's spokeswoman said the company isn't behind any of the McRib fan groups on Facebook and that there is no connection between McDonald's or any of its McRib lovers.

Plenty of companies offer limited-time products to coincide with holidays or promotions. Burger King offered actual ribs for a while this year. Mars Inc. sells red and green M&M's at Christmas. For McDonald's, with about $23 billion in annual revenue, these sorts of items might be considered a drop in the bucket. While the chain says it sold more than 60 million McRib sandwiches in the last three years, it sold 1.5 billion Big Macs in the same period. But every sale counts in a business that demands month after month of strong same-store sales.

"A tenth of a point in sales at McDonald's is a lot of money," says Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president for WD Partners, an Ohio restaurant design and development firm. "There's a certain percentage of people, when a product is not available, that crave it, and for the short amount of time that it's available again, it stimulates traffic."

The franchiser has helped cultivate the McRib mystique. Five years ago, one of the company's marketing regions in the South said it was permanently removing McRibs from all restaurants and announced a "McRib Farewell Tour." At the same time, the region created a "Save the McRib" website sponsored by the fake "Boneless Pig Farmers Association of America." The sandwich continues to be sold on and off in the region.