McDonald's let's not call it lent

Every year, same charade. Major fast food joints start advertising their fish-based meals - this is an implicit way of offering people fasting from red and white meat an option to actually dine at their places during lent. Interestingly, the word lent is never used (save for very few exceptions through the years). To give credit where credit is dew, the first such campaign to use the word was the - now defunkt - Classic Burger Joint in an ad dating back to 2012.

This being said, McDonald's is having major ads for its Swiss & Mushroom (and Burger King has a different ad as well for its Big King and Chicken Big King meal.

McDonald's goes lent without calling it so

McDonald's has an offer for a "veggie burger" (the ad says "we picked you one") for a "limited time". Guess what the limited time is? Lent! Of course, there is no such mention of it, and also no mention of fish-o-filet which was literally invented at the time for Christians who abstained on meat on Fridays. So here we are are again, lent time but don't call it so. If interested about places mentioning lent go to Mr. Brown (here). Crepaway (here). and the first to mention the word in their ad in 2012 Classic Burger Joint (here).

Vegans, now that's a campaign with no meat in it

Photo: Bassam Karam

Now, how do you tell a campaign without a backbone? It is firing on all fronts but missing most - if not all - if its targets. Let's recap. Vegans went all out, I covered the first unipole thinking it is a stand-alone (here). Turns out there is more where it came from. The first installment was very provocative, reaching to negative psychology. The second, above, goes "did I bother you saying vegan? What if I said vegetarian, Better? OK what if I said lent food?". Just to be clear, vegan has no Arabic equivalent and "vegetarian" is "nabati" (as mentioned in the ad - and up to my knowledge vegetarian and vegan are completely different diets). As for "lent food", I am not sure it is judicious to play on religious sensibilities in a country like Lebanon. 

So between the first installment and this, I can feel that the notion was "let's fire on all angles". Or as I called prior "the spaghetti theory" - you throw the ball at the wall and see what sticks.

Shish w shi does lent (reheats an old wordplay)

Shish w shi does lent - playing on the word "2ate3" which means both "meatless" and "thinking of". Yeah nice wordplay. Throwback to 2017 with these two ads:

I hope Shish w shi does not reheat its food like it does to its ads.

Mr Brown does lent

Well, added to the brands that mention lent by name, please welcome Mr. Brown. "Le(n)t's salmon" which indeed is a nice try. OK, they did try too hard to be honest which deducts bonus points but considering McDonald's still would not mention the word lent.... and hey, salmon is a good idea.

Crepaway does lent.

So Crepaway is advertising an incredibly appetizing lent meal. Interestingly, their ad says "if you are fasting or don't feel like eating meat" a clear nod to vegetarians (or even vegans a a vegan burger is present on the menu). The menu is fantastic to be honest (mozzarella burger for me, thank you!), and marks another year where brands are using the word lent in their ads. Just to give credit where credit is due Classic Burger Joint was the first to do it in 2012 in the ad shown below.