i'm lovin' it
The authors explain the thinking behind the new advertising theme, i’m lovin’ it, introduced in 2003
McDonald’s had used 21 different themes in the years from 1960 to 2002. Here is a sample of those themes (p.128):
1960: All American Menu
1966: McDonald’s… The Closest Thing to Home
1971: You Deserve a Break Today
1976: You, You’re the One
1981: Nobody Makes Your Day Like McDonald’s Can
1984: It’s a Good Time for the Great Taste of McDonald’s
1990: Food, Folks and Fun
1998: Did Somebody Say McDonald’s
2000: We Love to See You Smile
2002: Smile
2003: i’m lovin’ it
In 2003, it launched the i’m lovin’ it theme which is still alive today. The idea, which was born in Germany not in the United States, marks an important break from its predecessors.
The new theme took into account the fact that people had become more individualistic and did not particularly appreciate being told what to do. Hence the shift to the pronoun “I” which had never been used before. One important element of the brand pyramid is emotional reward and the introduction of the verb “loving” was a way of pointing to that aspect of the brand experience. The intentionally informal nature of the McDonald’s experience led to the lower-casing of the pronoun and the dropping of the “g” in the verb. Finally, by choosing the indeterminate “it”, the campaign pointed to an overall experience as opposed to focusing on one element of the experience, say the product.
The great modernist American poet Wallace Stevens who earned his living as a successful insurance executive would no doubt have appreciated the attention to language that went into McDonald’s theme, even if the end result is less imaginary and colorful than his verse.
