Billboards, pop-ups, and witty videos. Our world has become accustomed to an in your face approach to marketing and advertising. We don’t second guess pauses in YouTube and TV shows, Websites that aren’t populated with sidebar ads seem empty and bare, and major sporting events are coloured more by banners and signs than fans and contenders. This is the modern world of advertising, and people seem to get away with a lot more than they should… We’re looking at you Nandos… But some companies aren’t so lucky. Today we’re talking about the biggest advertising flops our world has ever seen. Marketing campaigns that push the idea of “All publicity is good publicity” to the max. And living up to the phrase “Check yourself before you wreck yourself”.

The year is 1984, Los Angeles is hosting the 23rd summer Olympics and McDonald’s is brewing the greatest promotional campaign of the decade. A token game that will give away a free item for every game the USA won a medal for.

So this is how it worked. For every item, you bought you would receive a scratch-off token. This token would have one of 221 Olympic events on it. If the USA wins a medal in that event you would get a free item in relation to the medal. Gold would get you a Big Mac, Silver would get you some fries, and bronze would get you a small coke. So let’s say you picked the 100m men’s freestyle token, and America won a silver you would then get free fries with your meal. This promotion was intended to get the USA more invested in the Olympics and the American participants. They had TV ads leading up to the event explaining the game, with the motto, “When the US wins, you win” flying everywhere.

But there were a few things the marketers didn’t fully take into account.  Four years earlier, in 1980, the 22nd Olympic Games were held in Moscow, Russia. During this time the USA boycotted the games due to Soviet War in Afghanistan. Fast forward to the next games, and Russia, as well as a few other communist countries such as East Germany and North Korea, turned down the invitation and boycotted the games. Now, this was a huge deal, at that time Russia and other Soviet Allies were sports powerhouses and dominated the majority of the events. This meant, no East German Swimmers, no North Korean table tennis players and no Russian boxers, weightlifters and so on. The USA ended up annihilating their opponents. Out of the 221 events, the USA scored a crazy 174 medals, with 83 being gold. As great as this was for American participants, McDonald’s suffered immensely.

This next bit is an excerpt from user KC-97HORN, on a Texas Forum:

What exacerbated the problem for McDonald’s was, once the Olympics started (and people started redeeming their prizes), each order got you ANOTHER gamepiece, so you could literally walk up with a free coke coupon, cash it in, get a new gamecard of an event that just finished yesterday where the US won a gold and silver, and you could turn that new card in for new food immediately, plus you got 2 new cards to play with. If you got a US Mens Track and Field or Swimming card you were almost guaranteed a Free Big Mac and French Fry. You could actually use 3 coupons, get 3 items, and walk out with an entire meal for free

Some families relied on this promotion as it meant their families could eat proper meals, in tough times. McDonald’s however lost millions but held fast due to their worry over a bruised reputation. Over 6,600 stores were affected, with shortages of Big Mac’s being the main issue. When asked about the promotion McDonald’s would not say how much it lost, but did say that to date it was the most expensive promotion in the history of the franchise.