(Elaina Natario Illustration)
Globe Editorial
McDonalds hooked up with the wrong Europeans. To freshen up a tired image without abandoning its familiar Big Macs and McNuggets, the fast-food chain is showing off a newly renovated Manhattan outlet. The furniture is modern and Danish-inspired. The overall design scheme comes from a French architect. But there’s a much more appropriate partner: Ikea.
Like McDonalds, the Swedish-born, Dutch-headquartered home furnishings retailer has built a global business empire on cheap products. But unlike McDonalds, Ikea has maintained a modicum of cultural cachet - both by upholding a Euro design aesthetic and by elevating basic products with whimsical names. It’s not a cushion cover; it’s an Alvine Räffla. Why buy a mirror, when you can have a Figgjo? A knife is nothing if not Skärpt.
Such names may mean something to Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns, but they’re merely evocative in the rest of the world. McDonalds could bring a new exoticism to its products by spelling them in various Scandinavian languages - “läsk,’’ say, instead of “soft drink.’’ Of course, Ikea markets some of its products in near-English, including its Fixa tools and Rationell kitchen organizers. By the same token, McDonalds might try some fake Swedish. When sales sag, why not relaunch the chain’s best-known sandwich as a Bigga Måk?
A McDonalds spokeswoman told the Associated Press this week that the chain wants customers to view its restaurants as a destination. Again, go ask Ikea; its parking lot in Stoughton has license plates from far and wide. A partnership might never progress to the point where McDonalds would sell Swedish meatballs - er, Köttbullar. But the Golden Arches still has plenty to learn from Ikea, where the corkscrews are Groggy, the flour sifters are Idealisk, and the kitchen utensils are ruthlessly Direkt.
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