A Meal That's Lost in Translation

McDonald’s India’s latest celebrity endorsement featuring Ranveer Singh represents everything wrong with modern fast-food marketing—a campaign so aggressively loud it drowns out the very product it’s meant to sell. The 30-second spot, ostensibly designed to promote “The Ranveer Singh Meal,” instead delivers a masterclass in how not to make food look appetising.

A clean product shot of the Ranveer Singh Meal, featuring all three meal items on a tray beneath the campaign slogan.

The Cacophony of Celebrity Over Substance

The advertisement opens with Singh’s characteristic verbal barrage: “Hi friends, how is you?” followed by the bewildering “Tasty lag rahe ho na?” (You’re looking tasty, aren’t you?)1. This isn’t clever wordplay—it’s linguistic chaos that immediately establishes the ad’s core problem: everything revolves around Singh’s hyperkinetic persona whilst the food becomes a mere prop.

The campaign’s central tagline, “Yeh Ranveer Singh meal nahi, yeh meal hi Ranveer Singh hai” (This isn’t the Ranveer Singh meal, this meal is Ranveer Singh), epitomises the fundamental disconnect2.

Rather than positioning the food as desirable, McDonald’s has created an abstract metaphor where personality supposedly trumps palatability.

Visual Appetite Suppression

What’s particularly jarring is how little screen time the actual meal receives.

The advertisement races through “hostel rooms, hilltop dates, and family meals” in a frenetic montage that prioritises Singh’s omnipresence over any meaningful food photography2. Traditional fast-food advertising relies on close-ups of melting cheese, crispy textures, and steam rising from fresh preparations. Here, the meal—featuring a McVeggie or McChicken with “Chilli and creamy Xplode sauce” and “Golden Pop Fries”—barely registers visually3.

The Bobaaa Blast drink, described as containing “pear syrup and boba pearls,” sounds more like a chemistry experiment than a refreshing beverage4.

When combined with the ad’s rapid-fire editing, these elements create sensory overload rather than sensory appeal.

The Celebrity Trap

McDonald’s has fallen into the celebrity endorsement trap that plagues contemporary Indian advertising. Singh’s involvement transforms what should be a straightforward food proposition into a personality cult exercise. The campaign, conceptualised by DDB Mudra, positions the meal as “a bold and fun expression of Ranveer’s McDonald’s favourites”5—but favours of whom, exactly?

The advertisement assumes viewers will transfer their affection for Singh directly to the food products. This might work for fashion or lifestyle brands, but fast food requires a more visceral connection.

Hunger doesn’t care about star power; it responds to visual and sensory cues that this ad systematically ignores.

Missing the Fundamental Marketing Brief

The Ranveer Singh Meal launched as part of McDonald’s global “Famous Orders” campaign, joining celebrities like BTS and Travis Scott6. However, those international campaigns succeeded because they maintained focus on the food whilst leveraging celebrity appeal. This Indian iteration reverses that priority entirely.

The meal itself—priced at ₹249 for vegetarian and ₹269 for non-vegetarian versions—represents a premium positioning that the advertising entirely undermines7. Instead of justifying the price through food quality or unique flavours, the campaign relies on celebrity association alone.

The Deeper Cultural Disconnect

Perhaps most problematically, the advertisement reflects a broader trend in Indian advertising where volume substitutes for substance. Singh’s manic energy might resonate with his fanbase, but it creates cognitive dissonance when applied to food marketing. The result feels more like a Bollywood film trailer than a restaurant advertisement.

The campaign’s failure lies not in its ambition but in its execution. By prioritising entertainment over appetite appeal, McDonald’s has created marketing that might generate social media buzz but fails at the fundamental task of making food look delicious. In an industry where sensory appeal drives purchasing decisions, that’s not just jarring—it’s commercially counterproductive.

The advertisement ultimately serves as a cautionary tale about celebrity marketing gone wrong, where the star becomes so bright it blinds viewers to the product itself.

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