I'm Loathin' It.

Apparently I'm not the only one "hatin' it" from McDonalds. I was curious to see how many others think this is a stupid campaign. So I threw "i'm hatin' it" into google and found some of these.

This rant from the Llama Box was posted on 11/22/03:

"Just how desperate is their corporate HQ? “We want to keep the basic concept alive - McDonald's forever young - with core promise of fun, youthful spirit, executed with quality services, cleanliness and all delivered at extraordinary values that will never change,” said McDonalds Executive Vice President Larry Light. I'm not sure what message they're trying to get accross exactly here - but boy does it suck.
When I first saw this commercial I really flipped. I mean I was pissed. Why the hell is a company like McDonalds doing a bling-bling commercial for food that can barely sell itself? And now, youre pushing it with shitty ass music? Come on! The reason why Wendy's is doing so damn well is that their burgers actually give you a taste of meat, not processed, no, re-processed and triple fried burgers that have probably been off the cooker for a couple of days. I wasn't inclined to buy McDonald's burgers before, and I'm damn sure I won't now."

This one was found on nef's blog on 12/13/03:

"What the heck is up with McDonald's latest brand campaign? 'i'm lovin' it' WTF? I knew where the mute button was on my remote before, but I had no idea the thing had such great responsiveness. My reflexes have become cat-like. When I hear that god-awful rap crap coming on I can mute the TV in under .27 seconds.
Taken directly from the afore referenced press release: "New “i’m lovin’ it” commercials focusing on the family and Ronald McDonald®." Say what? focused on the family? So far I've only managed to see (remember the TV is muted at this point) hoodlums, miscreants and the sort. Gone are the days of happy families hanging out in the local Micky D's, Ronald performing some trick to make a sad little girl happy or other uplifting moments. Apparently this 'world-class' marketing effort affords McDonald's to speak to thier new desired clientele. All I know is I shall no longer count myself as part of it."

The Landfill- Retarded Ad Round-Up 5 contained this post on 10/18/03. Here are some exerpts:

"...So what is all this in aid of? According to their press release, they're trying to promote a McDonald’s experience with the "i’m lovin’ it" attitude. What fucking attitude? What the fuck are they on about? Any idiot knows that McDonald's created itself as a kid-friendly place, mercilessly portraying itself as a super happy land where everything is nice and bright and cartoony with its constant TV advertising aimed at little kids. Now they're trying to attract teens (like me) by portraying themselves as some kind of party orgy house. Here, at least, the commercials are limited to annoyingly horrible pop/rap shit, a hybrid no one ever knew was possible.... ...They also had these little advertising things on the trays which had the same photos used to promote McShit on posters, but they also had captions in both English and Chinese which explained in detail what the pictures were about. One of them, a picture of two girls in a swimming pool, went something like this. Quote not exact, since I probably forgot the exact wording but this is the gist of it: "I love a dip in the pool with my best friends on a hot day. I'm feeling good and i'm lovin' it." Note the deliberate capitalisation error which so totally makes me want to eat a Big Mac! It's so totally rad and awesome, man! Please note the sarcasm. A couple of confused mails that I got revealed that some of my readers have had the part of their brain that detects sarcasm cauterized."

Found this one on Up, Up, Down, Down posted on 10/22/03:

"Note to McDonald's: you sell food, not image. I'm sorry to say, but carrying a Mickey D's bag down the street just doesn't sport the caché of, say, wearing Air Jordans. In other words, fire your ad man, cause "I'm [hatin'] it."

Ten Pin Productions has this to say on 12/31/03:

"I'm not lovin' it. In fact, I'm hatin' it, and wishin' you would be stoppin' it. Your commercials make my thumb go all spastic in a desperate attempt to change the channel before I have to hear that already bad R 'n B song made worse by your desperate last-ditch attempt to corner the "urban" market since white-bred suburbia has finally woken up and realized that your food makes us fat."

And Trev.org has this to say:

"What the hell is up with McDonald's cheesy ass marketing? I'm sure they have one of the largest advertising budgets in the world, and they just waste it on stupid shit. What ever happened to Ronald and the days when happy meals actually came in that cardboard box?
Back in the day they tried to combat that snazzy Burger King song (hold the pickles, hold the lettuce...) with the stupid Big Mac song (two all beef patties, lettuce, cheese...) I suppose that was decent, after all I was able to sing it in my head just now. If I'm lucky it'll be out of there by bed time. From there they graduated to "Have you had your break today?" While somewhat lame, this was ok. "Did somebody say McDonalds?" was probably one of their best ones. After all, how often do you give someone a few bucks on their way to McDonalds when you have a hankering for some McNuggets?
The new slogan, "I'm lovin' it," is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. First off, there's very little to like about McDonalds, much less love. Second, that sounds so fucking wannabe cool. Perhaps they're trying to appeal to the young kids with their hip and their hop and all that jivey cool funkification, but in the end it's about as natural looking as those Boost commercials with the old lady talking abut five kinds of nasty.
Only one question remains: Which came first, McDonald's cheesy new slogan, or Justin Timberlake's new single (which share the same name). In either case, it makes me want to eat at McDonald's even less, and shove the skewer even deeper into my eardrums."

iStockphoto has a thread on the awful ads in their forum.

Now while performing my search, I came across an article with this quote:
"It'll be fun, it'll be relevant, it'll be hip, it'll be compelling, and it will connect with people of all ages," chief operating officer Charlie Bell said.
Um...NO! Apparently it's not working. Plus on top of the lackluster creative/concept, they've got media buys that are even more annoying, constantly playing the crap ads. As some of the comments on the campaign had said, seems like people are finding the remote to be a handy thing. And that's not good for the channels that these ads are appearing on. If enough people are changing the channel during the commerical to avoid it, the chances that they will return to the programming they were watching is less than 80%. (No, that's not a researched number but I'm pretty sure that it's near true.) So then that means that the channels are losing out on viewers, which lowers their ratings, which lowers the cost for ads. But beyond that, which could be a short term thing without lasting effects, the ads are none of what they claimed they would be.
~Fun: There's nothing fun about Justin Timberlake trying to rap. There's nothing fun about lifestyle shots that look so forced.
~Relevant: This seems like a change to throw out meaningless corporate lingo. I've no idea what is relevant about the ads. Do they mean the health issues that they've been up against lately? If so, I don't get the connection. This morning on the radio I heard an ad for Philly Cheesesteaks at McD's....that's not healthy at all.
~Hip: More meaningless lingo, really. You can't make something hip. Either it's percieved to be hip or it's not. Advertising can't usually make something have an air of "hip". 99% of the time ads that do that backfire. And McDonalds is *not* hip, although it will increase the size of yours. ;) It's grade F meat, served by underpaid employees who are disgruntled (for the most part). What the hell is hip about that? Maybe he was thinking of the new font they rolled out for this campaign for the tag which has no capital letters. That's not hip either. In fact I think it's more of a childish look to the tag, which could be where they were going with it, but I thought a part of this campaign was to bring back the older age groups to a place they ate at as kids. And the music in this spots...is it hip because it's got pseudo-rap/hip hop going on? Um, that doesn't make something hip. Sorry dude.
~Compelling: Sure...lifestyle shots with quick edits are compelling. Maybe back in the 90s...but we've had over 10 years of MTV style quick edits and the sort that it's not compelling anymore. It's stale and it's old. What is compelling about "i'm lovin' it"? Seriously, I can't even imagine what the hell this guy was thinking when he spewed this line.
~Connect with people of all ages: If you're trying to be hip you can't connect with people of all ages. Sorry. That's just the way it is. If it's hip with the older crowd (like parents and the sort) then it's not hip with the kids (rebellion and all that). Can't have it both ways.

I feel bad for the agencies who do work for McDonalds. They've had to work with this vile concept that was thrown on their desks. What do you do with a bad idea that is being implemented worldwide? That you had nothing to do with? You grin and bear it I guess. Gotta keep the money coming in, even if you think it's a terrible idea.