With “The Pinky,” my name for McDonalds’ latest TV ad campaign (see screen caps below), advertising’s fascination with the hipster lifestyle comes to its final vulgar climax. Co-opting youth culture’s propensity for sign language (e.g., the finger-figurations for signing peace, west-side, hang-ten, etc.), the campaign introduces viewers to a world where pretty twenty-somethings sashay down streets wagging pinkies at each other, inviting fellow in-the-know model-types to join them at McDonalds. “Now when I’ve got a craving for a fancy restaurant style chicken sandwich,” a female voice tells viewers, “I head to my favorite place for McDonalds’ all-new Premium Chicken sandwiches.”

Both campaign spots (introduced fifteen minutes apart in last week’s Veronica Mars broadcast) finish off with couples holding up their newly acquired chicken sandwiches — but, before the boy’s allowed to bite, the girl instructs her suitor in cutting-edge McDonalds-eating etiquette. McDonalds’ Premium Chicken sandwiches, much like a porcelain cup of tea, should give well-cultured hands erections-of-the-pinky, stiffening the littlest finger while curling in the others. The girl’s voice-over continues: “Juicy chicken breast, crispy or grilled, in my kind of flavors … It’s a five-star taste worthy of my two-finger salute.” And the boy, his fingers now correctly salutory, finally gets the go-ahead to eat.

The campaign, one presumes, is aiming to depict McDonalds’ newest offerings as simultaneously up-market (hence, the effete pinky) and affordable (hence, the street-credified — albeit imaginarily so — hand gesture). In that sense, the pinky functions like marketing’s beloved hipster: well-educated and artistically-inclined but also shaggy and of-the-people. Fortunately, the diminutive pinky can’t bear so much symbolic weight, and McDonalds’ idea of a slogan-ified finger only comes across as laughably — and proportionately— short-sighted.

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Spot 1: “Now when I’ve got a craving for a fancy restaurant style chicken sandwhich, I head to my favorite place for McDonalds’ all-new premium chicken sandwiches: juicy chicken breast, crispy or grilled, in my kind of flavors. It’s a five-star taste worthy of my two-finger salute.”

Spot 2: “Don’t tell me you don’t have time to do a fancy lunch ‘cause now there’s McDonalds’ all-new premium chicken sandwiches: juicy chicken breast, in my kind of flavors, like the ranch blt and the club. Yup, they’re totally five stars, all the way.”

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