Brief Four - Plagiarism and Fabrication

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Fast Food Fabrication

Often, the word plagiarism is the monster under the bed for high school and college students. A simple mistake that reads as plagiarism can be career-ending and is heavily feared in the academic universe. However, plagiarism isn’t only found within textbooks and essays; we also see it in everyday life, especially in the world of advertisements. Today we will explore this side of the plagiarism universe and peek at the monsters under the bed.


Upon taking a deep dive into the world of Google, I stumbled upon the great McDonald’s plagiarism scandal of 2015. McDonald’s was introducing its newest double cheeseburger combo meal and rolled out an extremely familiar ad. Writer, David Sikorski, was photographed in a comedic shoot, taking engagement photos with a burrito. This shoot was viral online around July of 2015, and McDonald’s strikingly similar campaign was displayed just a month later.

While you may believe there’s no way they could have actually plagiarized, they most definitely did. McDonald’s even owned up to completely copying the images and took their ad down while filing a proper apology to David Sikorski and the photographer involved. Something as simple as images can be plagiarized, it is not just words and phrases; in fact, plagiarism is defined as the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them on as one’s own. Yep, McDonald's did just this.

Plagiarism in advertising is not often found within the words of the ad, and it is often found in the images used. We noticed this in McDonald's advertisement with their burger, and they were caught again! You would think they had learned by now, but in 2016 again struck with a small gif that was practically an exact replica of Cyriak Harris' video, "Cows & Cows & Cows". If you take a look at the tweet I have embedded below, you will ultimately see that it is the EXACT SAME VIDEO! 
This time was no different than the first as David Sikorski fired an accusatory tweet about the fabrication, Harris did just the same.  McDonald's reacted similarly to before by sending a spokesperson to formally apologize and promise to the world that they would be taking a look inside the advertising house of McDonald's. But, if we are honest, what else are they going to say. While I have only given you two examples of how McDonald's has been caught, there are many cases where they were toying with ads that have been plagiarized from someone else's work. I am no expert in advertising, but I believe they may need a few more creative minds within their department.

 As we have taken a short trip through a different world of plagiarism than many are familiar with, we see how major companies can be affected by something many think to affect students while writing essays. It is a whole new world, a much bigger and competitive universe that takes to twitter fights and formal apologies rather than a trip to the principles office or a slap on the hand. There are unwritten rules that you can't just copy another man's work and not expect retaliation from the original author. We took a look at McDonald's mistakes, but there are hundreds of cases each year. All I can say is be safe out there, protect your work.

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