A McDonald's advertisement described petting pit bulls as a 'risky' behavior.
In January 2012, McDonald's began advertising its new Chicken McBites menu item (similar to the popcorn chicken products served by a number of McDonald's competitors) with a variety of promotions, including a radio spot which ran for a short time in the Kansas City area that reassured consumers 'trying a brand new menu item at McDonald's' was much less risky than a number of other behaviors they might engage in, such as 'petting a stray pit bull,' 'shaving your head just to see how it would look,' 'naming your son Sue,' and 'giving your friends your Facebook password':McDonald's description of 'petting a stray pit bull' as a 'risky' behavior outraged many owners and aficionados of that type of dog, prompting so many complaints (and the creation of a Facebook group called Pit Bulls Against McDonald's) that the company issued an apology and said it was pulling the ad:In our effort to spread the word about our new Chicken McBites, a local U.S. radio ad has inadvertently offended some of our customers. The ad was insensitive in its mention of pit bulls. We apologize. We are pulling the ad, and we'll do a better job next time. It's never our intent to offend anyone with how we communicate news about McDonald's.Apparently McDonald's received so many complaints about the radio spot that it altered the automated menu which greets callers to its customer contact number and added an option to press 1 'if you're calling about recent McDonald's advertising.' (Callers who pressed that number heard a recording of a spokesperson reciting an apology with the same wording as above.)
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