Claim: 'Veiled Snobbery' Made McDonald's Britain's Most-Hated Brand

McDonald’s has been named the “most hated brand in Britain,” but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, according to Marketing Magazine, the British title that published a survey of brand-hatred (free, relatively painless registration is required to see it.)

“While most brands would rather be loved than hated, consumer affection does not necessarily result in a clear commercial advantage,” writes the magazine’s Nicola Clark. “Regardless of whether a brand has inspired great love or vehement hatred, it has at least elicited a definite response from consumers, meaning that not only are they aware of its existence but have strong feelings toward it, neither of which is necessarily a bad thing.”

Jill McDonald (yes, that’s her real name), McDonald’s marketing chief for Northern Europe, “admits that McDonald’s is a polarizing brand,” Clark writes. “Despite this, according to the chain, 70 percent of the UK population say they will eat at one of its restaurants at least once over a 12-month period.”

Rory Sutherland, an executive at the advertising firm Ogilvy, says “veiled snobbery” is at the heart of negative views of McDonald’s.

But he “finds a bright spot for it in its particular unpopularity among the over-55s,” Clark writes. Sutherland says good riddance to the dottering old fools. If they’re not there, they’re not “holding up the queue” for the more youthful, and so apparently more worthy, customers.

“One of the great things about McDonald’s,” he added, “is that the Guardian-reading, hand-wringing liberals who hate it so much don’t go there. It’s like the National Rifle Association - you either belong there or you don’t.”

I checked, and from what I can tell, Mr. Sutherland has never worked for any talk-radio outlets or for the Club for Growth, though he apparently is a fan of that group’s advertisements. He was, however, named the worst-dressed person in British advertising last year.

As an argument for the “as long as they spell your name right” theory of brand awareness, Tesco, the No. 2 most-hated brand, led the list of most-hated supermarkets, but it also led the list of the most loved.