New Hamburglar Fails To Sell McDonald's Burgers

The McDonald’s Hamburglar marketing campaign failed to boost sales for the fast-food giant. While he was a sensation on social media, the new Hamburglar didn’t succeed at his main job: promoting McDonald’s sirloin burgers.

McDonald's reimagined the bumbling thief from the 1970s commercials as a hipster dad living in suburbia as a way to rev up interest in a new line of premium sirloin burgers.

The promotion, launched in May this year, was intended to create more “brand excitement” and help the sales of the “third-pounder” sirloin burgers, and was part of an effort to show that the company's low-priced food was also high-quality.

The menu item failed to meet sales goals, even with a big marketing push from the hipster Hamburglar mascot. The limited-time item expired this summer, and restaurants are phasing them out.

“Our sirloin burger didn’t meet our expectations, However, this sandwich represents action steps the U.S. has taken to enhance food-quality perceptions," said Lisa McComb, a spokeswoman for Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald’s Corp.

"Seventy-six percent of customers who tried the sirloin burger said their opinion of McDonald’s beef improved.”

When McDonald’s brought back the Hamburglar earlier this year, the character morphed from a cartoonish moon-faced bandit into a hipster dad.

He caused buzz on Twitter and Facebook, with social-media users debating about his looks and outfit choices. He wore a Zorro-style mask and wears a burger tie, trench coat and black-and-white striped shirt.

Many consumers had a mixed view of the new Hamburglar, with some calling him "creepy" and others viewing him as "hot."

The overhauled look aimed at attracting more customers to company's restaurants but it failed to meet sale goals.

Nevertheless, McDonald's' chief executive Steve Easterbrook told Bloomberg on a conference call in July that the company had seen an improvement in results in the second quarter of 2015, giving investors cause for optimism after another quarter of slumping sales.