1988 McDonald's Salad Commercial

Do you think McDonald's salads are healthy? Believe it or not but, McDonalds has been advertising their salads for over 20 years in a manner to portray them as the healthy choice. In this 1988 McDonalds ad, these salads are portrayed as the healthy choice for active lifestyles through the use of many visual and audio stimuli. Whether this salads are actually healthy is debatably as different individuals may have different idles of what is healthy and some point to the McDonald’s Nutrition Guide as proof that the salads aren’t that much better than the other meals. Regardless, McDonald's ad portrays these salads has healthy and the ad can be broken down into three component mediums: the voice over jingle, the display of active individuals, and the images of fresh fruits and vegetables.

First, the voice over jingle in this ad is a strong medium of persuasion in this ad. The McDonalds ad starts with a women’s voice giving the command to “Listen”, this grabs the reader’s attention and after a few seconds of a visual montage gives the command to “Listen to the taste”. This is a strong use of logos as the logical argument to listen to the taste of the salad as a way to lead the audience to the conclusion about the appetizing nature of the salad. This also conveys that their salad is just as appetizing as another other foods. This is important because with any food product the way it tastes is important to the consumer and will be. In addition, the ad jingle repeats the phrase “good times” with the added phrase of “fresh all day at my place” when referring to McDonalds locations. This is a pathetic appeal as it conveys a sense of harmony and enjoyment when eating the salad and referring the McDonalds’ as “my place” gives the added benefit of making the store locations more inviting and home feeling. This is significant to the ad as making a “healthy” food product enjoyable would be viewed favorably by an audience looking to make healthy food choices.

Second, the montage of active individuals plays an important part to the overall effect of the ad. The display of individuals riding their bikes, being outside in workout cloths, and eating the salad with a basketball at hand all establishes a situated ethos as individuals that live active life style will tend to know what healthy food choices to make. This is important to the ad because it gives the McDonalds salad also a sense that it is truly healthy because individuals that are active and look healthy are eating the salad. There is also a pathetic appeal as individuals eating the salad seem to be happy and enjoying themselves like the family at the end of the ad and the women clacking her umbrella against the fence. This gives the added presumption that eating the salad will make you happy along with being healthy which would entice a viewing audience that is not happy with what they are eating to consider a McDonalds’ salad in order to feel happy and healthy

Lastly, the use of fresh fruits and vegetables images as transitions between scenes of the ad provides important rhetorical appeals to the ad. More specifically, the tossing of wet tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce establish a sense of invented ethos with the salad as it conveys that wholesome and nutrient dense ingredients are used in making the salad. This adds to the overall credibility to the salad that it is healthy as the ingredients look healthy. This aspect also provides a logical appeal as the images of the fresh fruits and vegetables lead the audience to the conclusion that the same fresh fruits and vegetables are used in the salads they are purchasing as a result these salads are fresh and healthy. This important because it attracts health based consumers to McDonalds for their on-the-go salad needs.

In the end, this 1988 McDonalds ad used audio and visual stimuli to express their rhetorical argument about how healthy their salads are. The air date of this ad also shows that healthy food phenomenon isn’t just a recent occurrence but has had a few decades to develop to what it is today. Although one could argue whether these salads are actually healthy, McDonalds likes to portray them that way to attract the newly forming health consumer base. Ultimately it’s up the consumer to decide if what McDonalds has to offer is healthy by their individual standards.