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McDonald’s Americana ad: Are people on Twitter unnecessarily freaking out?

Posted at 3:39 PM, Jan 12, 2015
and last updated 2015-01-12 18:10:29-05

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — McDonald’s debuted a new television commercial over the weekend that highlighted some of the many messages shown on the restaurant’s signs under its trademark Golden Arches.

The signs, which featured references to 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and the explosion of the Columbia space shuttle as well as more personal events like wedding anniversaries and birth announcements, were lauded by industry experts as uplifting but were largely panned by critics on social media.

“I thought the ad was awesome. It’s clear that all the billboards were real. It was demonstrating that McDonald’s is Americana,” said Steve McKee, president of McKee Wallwork + Company Advertising, an ad agency based in Albuquerque.