Appealing to the norms of society has always been a part of people 's lives. Children are taught, at a young age, about the societal importance of education and money. Since this is important in demonstrating a person’s place in society, many people feel the need to express wealth and sophistication to conform to a higher status. Recently however, the diachronics of societal norms has become more casual and has encouraged people to buy items at establishments that are considered to be of lower status. It is this desire for casualness that McDonald 's targets in their ad. In hope that the viewer sees a casual atmosphere as the new norm of society, the McDonald’s ad persuades the viewer that they promote a casual atmosphere where a high …show more content…
While the beginning of the scene works to exhibit the intellectual atmosphere, the rest of the scene uses the binary of intellectual/casual to show why McDonald’s is better. This binary is first mentioned when one of the women talks about how Mcdonalds is now selling gourmet coffee. The tone of her voice appears to be snobby, as if she is disapproving of Mcdonalds. This highlights the impertinent connotation associated with intelligence and wealth. If the audience sees wealthy and educated people in this way, then they will desire a relaxed atmosphere, which is what McDonald’s is promising. The binary between casual and intellectual is how McDonalds is working to sell their brand. After a couple of seconds of being disgusted at McDonalds, both women get excited by the fact that they can be casual while still getting the same type of beverages. Both of the women throw their books down and one of the women even mentions how she can now “read gus magazines.” This creates the idea that activities conducive to a preppy coffee shop are not important in the grand scheme of things. The new societal norm is that people are sick of higher status people and prefer to rid themselves of status. The end of the ad validates this by showing many different coffee beverages with simple white font. This plain text of the ad illustrates how people associated with McDonald 's are not concerned about the fanciness of a line of text. Rather they prefer plain text/images that represent a nonchalant attitude towards status