EV AND OIL ... VIRGIN TERRITORY

The car makers are back in the "pink" registering huge profits, launching IPOs and making loan paybacks in the billions. Along with rising oil prices, expected to hit the $100 mark next year, the temptation for these linked industries to stay the course with fossil fuel engines can easily hamper EV (Electric Vehicle) initiatives in the US.

Impetus is coming from GE with a pending purchase of 25,000 EVs by 2015. Twelve thousand will be the GM Volt, a $41,000 electric/gasoline hybrid. Nissan's Leaf will debut this year at a $33,000 price point.

As we gingerly step into the EV market, we should take a lesson from the UK. London is quickly becoming the electric driving capital of Europe, building 1300 public charging points over the next two years.

Agencies not making plans now to deal with this coming wave will be in a weak position to secure strong market share.

Cary, NC McDonald's

Learn about the industry and begin to set strategies NOW!

In the coming year, we will be launching an aggregation site, SparkStop.com, on all things EV. Stay tuned.

DID YOU KNOW?

Running late for a meeting in Connecticut, I pulled up to a drive through window at McDonald's and ordered an Egg McMuffin and a cup of coffee. Nothing extraordinary about it except for a declaration printed on the bag ....

"Great Breakfast Taste. We make sure of it. Every single egg we use throughout the year is individually inspected - all 3 billion of them."

Now that's quite a statement that got me to thinking. How long does it take to inspect an egg? And how many people does it take to do so?

Here's the math with the assumption that an egg can be inspected in one second.

To inspect three billion eggs in one year would take three billion seconds. A quick search at WolframAlpha converts that number to a bit over 95 years. Assume the average worker puts in 250 days a year, it would take 138.7 man years to inspect that many eggs.

Does McDonald's really employ almost 139 "egg inspectors"? I put a call into their corporate office. Their response follows.

"All of the fresh Grade A eggs used for the Egg McMuffin sandwiches are inspected at the farm. Eggs are washed with warm water before being inspected both visually and electronically for any cracks and flaws. Checked eggs are then packed for shipment to the McDonald’s restaurants. So yes, every single egg is inspected before it makes the Egg McMuffin grade!"

So the promise that every egg is individually inspected is stretching the truth. And your average consumer would assume that the eggs are inspected by hand before they hit the griddle.

Can we please get back to Harry McCann's search for "Truth Well Told'?

VENEZ COMME VOUS ETES

McDonald's has launched a new ad campaign in France that aims to celebrate the diversity of its customers. One of the spots, featuring an interaction between a father and his gay teenage son, is gathering a lot of attention online...

The campaign, from BETC Euro RSCG in Paris, sees the brand move away from its usual focus on the traditional family set-up to recognizing a wider clientele.

Pro family groups are now mobilizing to publicize McDonlad's extreme support of "the deviant moral lifestyle of homosexuals and transgenders".

Let My Open Kimono readers know how you feel about McDonald's niche positioning after viewing the video that follows. Voting is anonymous.

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