This is one of those stories that requires an introduction of sorts.
You see....here in Europe....McDonalds is fairly aggressive. They come up every couple of months and introduce a new gimmick burger. It stays around for a couple of months....gets lots of commercial action....goes through a period of growth and peak, then gets retired.
Yeah, we've gone through the Mexican era, the Chinese era, the Texas era, and at least twenty other gimmick burger periods.
So we are up to the Gran Chianina period. Now a normal guy would stop you at this point, and ask what the heck is Gran Chianina?
Well....it's a cow that only grows in the Tuscany area of Italy....the hilly area which is known for four-star agriculture and delicious beef.
The Chianina cow is a white cow....one of the tallest and biggest of any breed in the world. Chianina cows are the type that love hot weather, and generally are mild in attitude (they aren't like those aggressive types that would chase you from field to field in Bama). Italians will generally tell you that it's fine beef for steaks.
The gimmick here? Well....McDonalds is spending a fair amount of money....buying up a bunch of Chianina cattle, and sending them off to be burgers. No one is saying much from the rancher or farmer side in Tuscany. Beef is beef. If someone wanted to use their fancy cattle for hamburger....well....it's acceptable.
All of this means some fancy burger. This would include some kinda of nut sauce (don't ask), some lettuce, some fancy cheese (not the cheap stuff), and onion rings. It's a big burger....so you pay more than the traditional amount for it.
All of this leads around to advertising of course, and there....is where the issue of this blog will discuss.
What McDonalds envisoned....was a simple 30-second ad on TV, with rolling hills of Tuscany in the background....maybe some white Chianina cows standing there by a tree, and some fancy music in the background.
Well, the Tuscany political folks got all peppy. You can't be using pictures and images of Tuscany.....in a McDonalds ad.
You see, this area of Tuscany is a UNESCO protected area. It was identified and granted this special status as a world heritage area. This, by UNESCO rules, means you need to control the use of images and pictures in magazines, newspapers, and TV.
Naturally, McDonalds didn't ask permission to use pictures from Tuscany.
Most folks would kinda sit back and chuckle at this point. If you took a picture of some Tuscany tree, and yourself....using the image for your pickle store in Texas....you'd be in trouble.
Tuscany political figures are all over this. They quote this rule and that rule.....and how this is supposed to work. Generally, there's some gimmick pay-off in the UNESCO game book. You'd relieve yourself of money, paying some lawyer, who'd pay some political fee, and it'd all be stamped 'approved'.
Presently? It looks like some lawyers will contact McDonalds, and then some other lawyers will play this out. The Chianina cow burger ad? Well....it'd likely run for two months and then just start to disappear. The burger would be retired by early spring....replaced by some other burger (the Montana burger, or the French burger, or the Thai burger).
Whether the lawyers keep arguing into summer of 2014 or beyond would be a question I'd be curious about.
All of this brings me to this worry. A guy could go and take some video and pictures in Tuscany....just rolling hills....public scenes. Then he'd use them in some gimmick ad, and get into all kinds of trouble. If you ask me....the Tuscany guys are just making their own territory into a lawyer-zone, and aiming to sue folks for some gimmick image status. In this case, it's not the sacred cow that got folks into the trouble...it's the sacred landscape.
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