Ruano 1

Jessica Ruano
Professor Hanvey
ENG 100/STACC
12 November 2014
The Sharing Experience
In America, franchises have become the everyday thing. Most suburban cities
typically share the same layouts when it comes to restaurants and shopping centers.
Driving through different cities in Southern California can sort of feel as if you keep
reentering the same exact city, except it is a completely different one.
As stated in the book, McDonalds has created this chain like effect. It has
been the inspiration for other businesses/franchises not just in the food industry,
but in almost everything else (97). All throughout the United States, driving along a
retail strip has become a shopping experience, much like strolling down the aisle of
a supermarket, Schlosser states (97). Schlosser means that us as Americans no
longer participate as often in everyday activities like grocery shopping as often as
we pull into a driveway.
In 1969, Donald and Doris Fisher decided to open up a blue jeans business
with the same concept that McDonalds, Burger King and KFC utilized to operate; this
business is now Gap, Inc. The Fishers knew that by using the same concepts that
those businesses used that they too would be successful.
Along with using the same methods to advertise to children or teenagers to
draw in their customers, these businesses also strategically standardized the way
each one of their stores looked inside and out. This was important because this was

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a way to appeal to their customers. Everything is protected by a copyright law now,
even the simple things all have copyrights.
In the late 1960s, McDonalds started to tear down buildings with the golden
arches atop their slanted roofs (97). Because they were worried how their
customers would react to the change they then hired Louis Cheskin who was known
as a design consultant and psychologist. Louis Cheskin then advised them that the
golden arches resembled a pair of large breasts: mother McDonalds breasts (98).
The golden arches not only resembled a pair of large breasts, but they also
represented a universal, all-American symbolism, which also formed the M in
McDonalds (98).
Devotion to a new faith is what Schlosser uses to title this chapter; what he
means by this is that McDonalds created this method of advertising and becoming
profitable; this method is known as synergy. After many companies saw the success
of McDonalds and how they appealed to their customers they also decided to take
the same approach to their companies, which in long term made our cities like
supermarkets.
All throughout the United States our cities have become so similar and in
some cases identical to other cities, meaning that the same franchises/companies
that use the same methods of advertising, etc are all moving together, sort of to the
beat of the same drum. Anywhere where we build a McDonalds, another franchise
follows and so on and so forth. Nowadays it is much simpler to go through the drivethru of a business than to simply get out and go inside. These business/franchises
have become what we now feel is a shopping experience.

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Bibliography
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2001. Print.