*McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski did not expect a burger promotion to turn him into an internet punchline — but here we are.
In a candid sit-down with Wall Street Journal, Kempczinski tackled the online firestorm head-on and offered up a rather unexpected culprit for how it all unfolded. The clip that started it all showed Kempczinski taking one modest bite of the new Big Arch burger, prompting a flood of online jokes about whether the man running McDonald’s actually has a taste for the menu. The mockery spread far enough that executives at rival chains Burger King and Wendy’s seized the moment, each jumping in with their own on-camera taste test videos.
Kempczinski had no inkling the footage had gone viral until a family member broke the news. “And then, yeah, I started getting texts and emails and calls,” he said, per USA Today. “You know, invariably, they were all like, ‘Hey, have you seen this?’ And it’s like, by the thousandth time, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen it.'”
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He traced the awkward on-camera pause back to a childhood lesson. “I think, you know, I blame it all on my mom because she told me, ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,'” he told the WSJ, adding that in hindsight he should have thrown that advice out the window. “And, I think probably in that case, I should have just said, ‘You know what? To hell with it. I’m gonna go talk with my mouth full.'”
For his part, Kempczinski took the heat in stride, welcoming the attention on the Big Arch and noting that a presence on social media comes with an unavoidable price. “I think when you go on to social media, in general, you have to have a thick skin,” he said.
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