BETC Paris Makes Everyone an Emoji in McDonald’s Spot

BETC Paris takes a different approach in its latest ad for McDonald’s, imagining a world where everyone is an emoji.

The effect in the 60-second “Venez comme vous êtes,” set to a cover of “Video Killed the Radio Star,” is kind of creepy. Sure, those big yellow heads may be smiling away, but what’s going on underneath? The spot follows dozens of such emoji-headed people, from the point of view of a group of friends out on a joy ride, eventually ending up in a McDonald’s location. There we see a fry-thieving youth vacillate from demonic to angelic, another group of friends taking a selfie with their meal, ending on a large group shot outside the location. While it’s presented in a happy, upbeat light, the result is somehow disturbing nonetheless. You can’t help but feel that somewhere in this emoji universe is a fascist Pacman dictator ensuring everyone keeps up appearances. On paper this probably seemed like a fun idea leveraging the ubiquitous popularity of emojis, but in practice it just doesn’t work that way. On the bright side, maybe this will convince advertisers to stop overusing emojis in ads…but probably not.