The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2026
McDonald's Japan launched its Ano CM at the height of her naming scandal
Ano apologised on 23 May for naming a colleague she disliked; four days later McDonald's Japan launched its CM with her — and boycott calls hit the brand.
McDonald's Japan · 2026-05-26
What happened
Ano — singer, performer, television personality — was the face of McDonald's Japan's 'Onegai McDelivery Viva! World Mac' campaign for its limited-time peach and muscat smoothies. Mid-May 2026, on TV Asahi's 'Ano Channel', she answered the show's question 'which celebrity do you dislike after Becky?' by naming Suzuki Sarina. The clip detonated a week-long firestorm.
On 23 May Ano apologised on X — 'I am sorry for dragging the other party into this' — saying the questions had been hidden from her until just before filming and that her request to have the name beeped was edited out; she announced she was quitting the show. Her agency's statement was criticised as bland. The scandal was at its peak on 26–27 May, when McDonald's launched the campaign — Ano dancing with Saito Nagisa — exactly on schedule.
The boycott calls landed on the brand, not just the performer: 'Her image is bad… I don't feel like buying', 'I will stop going to McDonald's until the Ano CM ends', 'Is this timing really okay? The world is not as sweet as McDonald's.' McDonald's never responded, paused or recast. The campaign ran, and the launch conversation became the scandal instead of the smoothies.
Why it happened
- CM schedules lock months ahead; the launch colliding with the apology is what it costs to have no decision gate between filming and air date
- Pausing or recasting has a real price, and McDonald's evidently calculated the storm would pass — instead the boycott posts became the launch coverage
- The brand inherited a question it could not answer — 'is this timing okay?' — and its silence turned the advertisement itself into a statement
The lesson
A campaign filmed before a scandal can still launch after it — but then the brand owns the scandal's timing. McDonald's ran the ad; the boycott became the ad.
Aftermath
McDonald's Japan never commented and the CM kept airing; Ano left Ano Channel and continued other promotional appearances, including the Yokohama International Film Festival. Japanese media counted the case among 2026's most conspicuous 'launch anyway' decisions — a smoothie campaign remembered for its comment section rather than its product.
Sources
- Yahoo!ニュース: 「イメージ悪くて…」あの マック新CM出演も一部アンチから「不買」の声
- Smart FLASH: あのが出演の最新「マクドナルド」CM 「鈴木紗理奈嫌い」発言での“泥沼騒動”さなかの公開
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