The top brass at McDonald’s was so impressed with a recent “diversity” prank in Texas that the men responsible were rewarded with $25,000 each as part of an upcoming marketing campaign.
Jehv Maravilla, 21, and his friend Christian Toledo, 25, appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” this week to discuss what prompted them to create a fake McDonald’s promotional poster and put it up inside a Pearland location.
“We looked around and saw these other posters on [the wall],” Mr. Maravilla told the host. “We saw that there’s different ethnicities. And we saw that there’s all these people having fun. So we decided to represent ourselves as Asians to be up there as well.”
You guys earned this dream. 👍 Looking forward to more work from the best “Regional Interior Coordinators” we’ve ever had! 😉
— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) September 19, 2018
The pair also created fake “Regional Interior Coordinator” ID badges and purchased old McDonald’s uniforms from Goodwill as part of their scheme.
It took Mr. Maravilla’s social media announcement 51 days later for the company to respond to the ruse.
These kids put up a poster of themselves in a McDonald’s, and nobody noticed for months. But I noticed. https://t.co/WAscG3bF0b
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) September 17, 2018
“McDonald’s loves customers like you,” Ms. DeGeneres said Monday. “And they’re committed to diversity and want to represent all their customers. So they’re going to use the two of you in a marketing campaign. Not only that, but since you’re in the campaign they need to pay you, right? So you’re each getting a check for $25,000 dollars.”
“You guys earned this dream. Looking forward to more work from the best ’Regional Interior Coordinators’ we’ve ever had!” the company tweeted Tuesday.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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