Marketing

The Mystery of the McRib

Why does the McRib go away, only to come back?  Why won’t it just stay away?  Is it brilliant marketing or culinary herpes?

What is the McRib?

The McRib, as some Americans know, is a sandwich sold by McDonald’s containing a processed pork patty formed into a shape vaguely suggesting barbecued ribs.  To complete the rib-like illusion, the meat is slathered with barbecue sauce, sprinkled with onions and, for reasons nobody can fathom, topped with pickles.

The strangest thing about the McRib is not that some people like it, but that it is not sold continuously, seasonally, or on any schedule understandable to humans. Every few years McDonald’s just brings it back without warning — now is the time of the Fifth Coming of the McRib, according to Wikipedia.

Which makes you wonder, why? Every other menu item at McDonald’s stays or goes — it doesn’t return intermittently like Halley’s Comet.  It would be nice to imagine that the McRib’s appearance is simply a precious windfall from the capricious McDonald’s Corporation.  We are merely children in the hands of a mercurial, cholesterol-distributing god.  But the world doesn’t work this way.

Why won’t the McRib just stay?

My theory is that the McRib has short-term charisma, but it has poor long-term eatability. The cycle goes like this: after a long period of absence, most people forget what a McRib tastes like.  There is a frenzy of media attention when the McRib’s return, they look good, and people buy them.  But then they eat them, and they are, well, a little disappointing.  Customers don’t reorder, and they ridicule their friends who do.  Soon everybody knows that the McRib is pariah food, and McDonald’s takes it off the market until amnesia sets in.  So in some ways, this is marketing genius: you generate buzz for an unloved food product, sell the heck out of it before people wise up, and then disappear.  The exact same thing is done with Wacky WallWalkers.

A second theory also exists.  It is well known that a small, disorderly portion of the population goes gaga over the McRib.  These obsessed individuals must be sated, or (it is rumored) their hunger will cause them to run rampant and to start eating the closest things to the tender, boneless McRib: that is, other human beings — preferably with BBQ sauce and pickles.  The McDonald’s corporation recognizes this threat and consents to release the McRib, at a loss, to placate these individuals and preserve humanity.  I have no idea if this theory is true, but either way, thanks, Ronald!

P.S. In the name of Science, I actually ordered and ate a McRib today.  If it didn’t have sauce (or pickles) it wouldn’t taste like much of anything.  I don’t regret eating it, but I now reserve the right to ridicule you if you order one.  The cycle begins anew!

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