McDonald's advert fakes 'Swedish' farmland

Burger giant McDonald’s chose to fake the Swedish countryside in their latest commercial, in which the company highlights Swedish agriculture, and their own cooperation with Swedish farmers.

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“McDonald’s in collaboration with 1,000 Swedish farmers,” concludes the commercial, which was produced by ad agency DDB.

It now turns out that the commercial was actually filmed in the Czech Republic, as the Swedish landscape didn’t work, reports Swedish magazine Land’s supplement Lantbruk och Skogland.

“It’s very simple,” McDonald’s Sweden’s press director Frida Berg told the Resumé newspaper.

“We recorded the film during the winter, and Sweden was covered in snow. We wanted to show a spring landscape, and that wasn’t possible to film in Sweden.”

“Obviously we would’ve preferred to record it here, but it simply wasn’t an option. We had to record it this winter, in order to get it finished in time, so we didn’t really have another option.”

According to Berg, the important thing is the commercial’s message:

“We’ve received a lot of positive feedback and comments for raising awareness and showing the importance of Swedish agriculture.”

The tractor-driving farmer appearing in the commercial seems to be the only real Swedish element. He is reported to be a Swedish milk farmer.