February 14th marked the beginning of the Christian Lenten season, which means the return of everyone's favorite "Filet O'Fish" commercials from McDonald's.
While McDonald's never directly links their Filet O'Fish sandwich to Lent, it is a seasonally priced item, heavily marketed to coincide with the Catholic tradition of eating fish instead of meat on Fridays during Lent and was indeed brought to the menu to combat falling hamburger sales on Fridays, back in 1962. The 'Filet O'Fish' campaigns began back in the 60's and traditionally run from the start of the Lenten season to a week prior to Good Friday, when McDonald's switches focus to their seasonal Shamrock Shakes. The restaurant usually sees about a 24% increase in sandwich sales as a result of these campaigns, annually.
McDonald's has an annual commercial to market the Filet O'Fish. The most notable one came from 2009 and features mascot "Frankie the Fish", linked below.
The video is extremely memorable due to the catchy jingle repeating "Filet o Fish" over and over, never letting you forget the product, even thinking about it past fish sandwich season. The commercial successfully utilizes humor and a lighthearted tone and has a simple objective: promoting the fish sandwich, and making consumers extremely aware of its existence, even though it had already been around for 40 years. The commercial inspired online videos of customers singing the jingle in drive-thrus, using only the lyrics to order the sandwich. Frankie, the singing fish, replaces the former Captain Crook McDonaldland Filet O'Fish mascot. The commercial is regarded as a nationwide success, still notable after almost 10 years, the jingle still stuck in many of our heads, during and past fish sandwich season.
In 2017, McDonald's Filet O'Fish campaign in the UK received massive backlash, featuring a much different take from their 2009 jingle and actually had to pull their ad. The commercial featured a boy mourning the loss of his recently deceased father. The boy stumbles through his life, trying to be like his father, failing, and finding that he lacks a connection to him -- until he eats a Filet O'Fish sandwich. Though the commercial attempts to appeal to families and make a connection through something they view as a tradition, the plot felt rather exploitative and insensitive, and as a result completely fell flat. It did not seem like anyone on the team working for it had ever felt the pain of losing a loved one, let alone a parent, and struggling to keep a connection to them.The commercial in question is linked below.
Last year in the US, McDonald's decided to take a completely different approach and address some of the environmental concerns consumers often have when it comes to fast food restaurants with a commercial highlighting sustainable fishing, as opposed to less ethical fish farms that are bad for the environment. This angle makes sense for McDonald's, as they are also trying to re-position themselves as a better brand, healthier and more environmentally conscious than their current rather unfavorable reputation. Here, they are claiming to be the first fast food restaurant to have the Marine Stewardship Council ecolabel, also setting them apart from their many other competitors.
As alluded above, McDonald's certainly aren't the only company that promote their fish sandwiches around this time of year, after all, it's only smart business. Wendy's has their "premium North Pacific cod" sandwich, Arby's has a crispy fish sandwich, Burger King has their "Big Fish" sandwich, amongst many other competitors. The competition is high, especially in areas that also have local restaurants and churches running their own homemade fish frys.
A 2018 commercial has yet to air, and after their 2017 scandal, it may be likely that McDonald's is stepping away from television promotion of the sandwiches this year. However, they certainly aren't shying away from promoting them in their restaurants. Many locations, alike their competitors, feature prominent signs in front of their restaurants displaying pricing and deals for their fish sandwiches, one of many options around. It may not seem like the most popular marketing season, but the Lenten season is certainly one promotional period the restaurant business doesn't want to miss out on.
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