NO McDonalds Szechuan Sauce for you!
(or you, or you, or you!)

Marketing disaster, or a genius plan?

Today at about 10am my son came in my office by me and said he had to go to McDonalds 30 minutes away to get a limited addition Szechuan Sauce at 2pm.

Now first let me explain, my son is not a big fan of McDonalds, and if he does eat there, it is only when they bring back their McRib once a year, so I was very puzzled by him saying this which I am sure he could tell by the look I gave him followed by “The what sauce?” He then goes into this big explanation about a sauce McDonald’s had back when the Disney Mulan Movie was released in 1998. (mind you he would have been FIVE YEARS OLD, so now I am even more confused) He goes on to explain and starts talking about someone named “Rick & Morty.” At this point I am looking into the other room to see where exactly my husband is because I am thinking our son has completely lost his mind.

Oh… Did I mention, Yup, you guessed it… He is a Millennial.

So let me explain to you what I finally found out, after his father “translating” it to me.

There is a popular adult cartoon show on Cartoon Networks Adult Swim called “Rick & Morty” which is about a mad scientist named Rick who takes his Grandson Morty on crazy adventures around the Universe. In the recent Season 3 premiere of the show, it is all about finding the elusive “Szechuan Sauce.” which prompted a petition to be circulated after a tweet that over 44,000 fans signed asking McDonalds to bring back this sauce so they could try it. Which brings us to today…..

McDonalds responded with buttermilkcrispytenders.com. The sauce would return to select stores in limited amounts, at 2 p.m. on Saturday, October 7th. And as you can see on their website, it would be VERY LIMITED, they put….. “And when we say limited, we mean really, really limited!”

Lucky me, a store 30 minutes away was going to have this and my husband and son both wanted to go (note sarcasm).  Now, I did not have to go, but I had some places to stop at in this city anyways, so I might as well go along instead of making a special trip next week.

12:30pm, We head out of town, get to the McDonalds at about 1 p.m. and the parking lot is PACKED! Yup, I will just wait in the car!

5 minutes later my cell phone is ringing which is followed by “Mom, they do not have any sauce, just posters but we are going to wait!” I think to myself “That is odd, I even looked at the website and it said they would have it, how do they not have any?” After then going to McDonalds facebook page and twitter to double check what was going on, come to find out myself and many others nationwide did not read the fine print which read “Each McDonald’s in the location finder will give away limited-edition posters and stickers, while supplies last; only the McDonald’s locations labeled “Szechuan Available” will be giving away Szechuan Sauce, while supplies last”

Needless to say, A LOT of upset customers, some who had been waiting hours and hours to get this “Amazing Sauce.”

A half hour later my son and husband return to the car, neither have a poster (it is being reported on facebook and twitter most locations only got 10 posters) But they did each buy a 4 pack of the buttermilk crispy tenders which were rather tasty, along with a sticker (photo below) and a coupon for a free 4 piece tenders.

They were both a little disappointed, but after some further  investigating, I am seeing at many locations that were actually suppose to have sauce none was available, and for locations that did have the sauce, they were only shipped 20 of them. 10? Really? Most stores had 100 plus eager patrons standing in line.

Right now Social media is a buzz with “McDonalds Fail” and their marketing planning, But the more and more I think about it…. Was it a fail on their part? Talk of their “Szechuan Sauce” is going on all over including many top newspapers writing articles about it. Hashtag #szechuansauce is buzzing right now, and many of us in the U.S. who had no idea what this sauce was all about, now are hearing about it, and even I want to try it after seeing the demand for it!

Isn’t the saying “Even bad publicity is good publicity.”

So I wonder… in a few months, to “make up” for todays fail, Will McDonalds do a nationwide release of this sauce? I guess only time will tell, but I could definitely see this being one of the best marketing campaigns of all time!