This morning McDonald’s unveiled its not-quite-newest mascot on Twitter with a little help from its PR agency of record Golin.
Here’s the initial message, which went live a couple of hours ago:
Wait, is this who we think it is??! https://t.co/rc9xhQrAUi
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— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) May 6, 2015
Is it? Even Mashable had to add an “…uh…” before running an image of “this guy”:
The newer, sexier Hamburglar would appear to be an attempt to both promote a new limited-time “sirloin” burger and position McD’s as a slightly more mature establishment rather than one staffed by surreal, possibly drugged-up cartoon characters.
For more evidence of the latter, the client did recently release an “artisan” (not “artisanAL”) chicken sandwich, which helped one Slate writer deal with the deep shame he felt after ordering an Egg McMuffin.
The client also created the requisite hashtag, returning to the character’s indecipherable catchphrase “robble robble.” Social media couldn’t quite make up its mind on the new guy; Gawker labeled him an “EDM-loving asshole dad” and we personally vacillated between calling him a cyber-criminal and a pro wrestler.
So far, the most common word used to describe him seems to be “creepy.”
From Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone:
Hamburglar looks like a male stripper. I might be ok with that.
— Tim Dickinson (@7im) May 6, 2015
No dadbod on this dude despite his suburban house-husband day job.
Sadly, no one alerted the McRib, who obviously missed out on the reunion tour.
There’s a new Hamburglar? @dadhamburglar “@McDonalds: Wait, is this who we think it is??! https://t.co/3mAoiPAZtF”
— McRib Sandwich (@McRibSandwich) May 6, 2015
Finally, our nominee for the role of the new Grimace:
Editor’s note: contrary to our previous headline, Leo Burnett was not directly involved in the Hamburglar’s re-emergence.