Fast food giant McDonald’s is facing backlash after botching its response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk
As reported by U.Today, the centibillionaire asked the Chicago-headquartered corporation to accept Dogecoin. In return, he promised to eat its Happy Meal on television.
McDonald’s has seemingly backed away from the offer by tweeting that it will accept Dogecoin if Tesla accepts “Grimacecoin.”
The name of the made-up cryptocurrency was inspired by Grimace, a purple anthropomorphic creature that started appearing in McDonald’s commercials in the early 1970s. It was originally supposed to be a mean-looking character with four arms that would steal kids’ milkshakes. However, Roy Bergold, McDonald's creative officer, told QSR Magazine that “Evil Grimace” had turned out to be a failure because it was too scary for kids.
Just minutes after the McDonald’s tweet, someone created an actual token called “Grimacecoin” on Binance Smart Chain that pumped more than 261,000% within hours before erasing the lion’s share of its gains.
McDonalds pulled up to crypto Twitter and dropped a 100x ? pic.twitter.com/3JEV1UYkqA
— The Chairman (@WSBChairman) January 26, 2022
Due to the low barrier to entry, BSC has become a hotbed for quick pump-and-dump projects, which is why investors should exercise caution.
A missed opportunity
The Dogecoin community was largely dissatisfied with the response. Many pointed to the fact that it took the company’s marketing team over 10 hours to come up with such an offer.
It really took McDonald’s 10 hours to draw that up smh my head
— greg (@greg16676935420) January 25, 2022
Dogecoin co-founder Billy Markus commented that the Grimacecoin tweet was a textbook example of how to make something fun unfunny.
Glauber Contessoto, who made headlines as a self-proclaimed “Dogecoin millionaire” last year, tweeted that the world’s restaurant chain had “fumbled an incredible opportunity for a terrible joke.”