EINNEWS, November 30—It’s not uncommon for retailers to make a cult product out of scarcity. It’s a proven promotional technique. Often, if a person thinks he or she can’t have it, that only increases desire.
What is unusual is the way McDonald’s has created an artificial scarcity out of its McRib sandwich, and in keeping it out of consumers’ hands and built an explosive pent up demand.
McRibs showed up in McDonald’s 14,000 U.S. restaurants in early November. By December 5 they will be gone again. McDonald’s admits that it holds the McRib sandwich out as a “promotional menu item,” available only now and then, for a few weeks at a time. This has been going on since 1982.
This reemergence of the McRib has been McDonald’s biggest promotional success story for the elusive sandwich. So many have been sold that hog prices have skyrocketed, McRib searches are among the hottest topics on Google and Yahoo! More than 6,000 people recently “liked” the McRib page on Facebook. The Wall Street Journal gave the molded pork sandwich front-page treatment, and “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart used a McRib to try to entice former President George W. Bush to appear on his show.
The McRib is not exactly a health food item. It’s 500 calories of compressed pork, salt, sugar, preservatives, sauce and pickles.
In fact, once they disappear from McDonald’s stores you don’t have to feel abandoned. Making them at home is just a matter of cooking rib-shaped pork patties and placing them between two halves of a hoagie roll with onion slices, dill pickles and barbecue sauce.
Or, if you don’t want to go to that trouble, just go to Germany, where McDonald’s sells the McRib as part of its regular menu the year-round.
For more fast food news, visit Fast Food News Today (http://fastfood.einnews.com), a fast food media monitoring service from EIN News.
