For a company like McDonald’s that has been around for a while, it’s difficult to continually create creative and attention-grabbing ads. However, because it’s already well established and popular, it also has more freedom to experiment with different types of ads. Like many effective advertisements, McDonald’s uses commonplaces in order to resonate with the public. In this specific advertisement, there are sandwiches wrapped to look like they came from McDonald’s. It says, “Nice try, Mom…” The picture alone would be confusing, but the addition of the text makes it clear that a mom packed lunch for her kid and wrapped it to look like it came from McDonald’s. Then, her son or daughter would be tricked into eating it.

The ad only works because of commonplaces. Without them, it would be meaningless. The assumption is usually that the mom is the one who packs lunch for the kids. In combination with the picture, the commonplace helps the consumer to infer that that the ad depicts a packed lunch. Additionally, by using the word mom, it’s clear that the phrase is from a kid’s point of view. Another commonplace is that children generally prefer fast food to homemade food. Because people generally understand that, they also understand exactly what the mom did for the kid to say that. These commonplaces put together intend to show that just putting a McDonald’s label on an item of food could make it more appealing. However, seeing that the child saw right through the trick, McDonald’s may also be trying to show that it has a distinct menu and its food cannot be replicated. The tone of the text implies that the child thinks the sandwiches are not as good as food from McDonald’s. With only three words and a simple picture, McDonald’s draws from people’s personal experiences. Using commonplaces makes it so that a wide variety of people can personally relate to the advertisement.