Make Sure You Don't Spill This Stuff -- It's Premium
By Jocelyn Geboy in Food on Feb 28, 2006 6:49PM
It appears that McDonald's is trying to get back into the coffee game. We're not sure why they are trying so hard, but after they were raked over the coals by Morgan Spurlock, it's seemed to us that they've been doing nothing but fix, manage and damage control ever since.
The salad brigade. The dollar menu. The fry scandal.
Now it's coffee. The business story in the Trib says that McDonald's is going to be offering a premium coffee choice in order to compete with the likes of Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts and even Burger King, who has offered up their BK Joe.
(Advertising/marketing tangent: We've always been stymied by the fact that people who are addicted to Starbucks go to Dunkin' Donuts as their next choice for chain coffee. It's obvs not about style points, right? Also, is anyone else as horrified by the big-headed King as we are?)
We're not sure what McDonald's is worried about, since "strong breakfast sales helped deliver U.S. sales that were 9.7 percent higher than the previous year, the largest jump since September 2004." Their McGriddles had a large hand in that.
(Secondary advertising/marketing tangent: Did it seem weird to anyone else that their recent breakfast campaign seemed to be all about getting McD's breakfast when you were hungover? We knew that most drunkards knew the secret healing powers in consuming something along the lines of a sausage biscuit, hash brown and OJ meal, but we didn't think wholesome McDonald's would jump on the hangover bandwagon.)
Bottom line: McDonald's is now trying to get a share of the coffee market, even though it seems to us that people who go to McDonald's do so regardless of crap coffee, high calories or mega fat intake. Sometimes, you just crave a McMeal.