Our great Petaluma Downtown Association does a good job of attracting and supporting business in our town. You may recall the Argus Courier article McDonald’s Brings Hollywood to North McDowell. This article tells about a commercial McDonalds was filming here that included some Petaluma references. In that article Marie McCusker said “Petaluma is the hometown they want to portray. The commercial will show our location and a Petaluma sign, so you will know it was filmed here.” Well it has arrived. Check it out.
We really like how they describe Petaluma as a quaint town nestled in Northern California. Makes me want an Egg White Delight McMuffin.
On March 9 The Petaluma Downtown Association weighs in on the replies to comments on their facebook page:
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Hilarious – “Our great Petaluma Downtown Association does a great job of attracting and supporting business in our town.” It’s not a great job when a business organization is only successful in attracting and promoting minimum wage jobs while losing nearly all of the higher skill and higher paying technology jobs.
I’m sorry, but this is gross and I’m not proud of it. I don’t want my awesome town associated with McDonalds. The Petaluma Downtown Association should be working on marketing our amazing LOCAL food and restaurants, not selling out to a struggling corporation trying to convince customers that its food isn’t crap.
Well now that is lovely. Let’s see if we can’t promote some of the local businesses. You know, the ones that hire local, purchase local, deposit their dollars local, and participate in their local community. Is this really who we want to be associated with??
My neighbors and myself would be the least likely to want McDonald’s associated with what Petaluma is. Petaluma is indeed our hometown and staunchly supports retention of its local and independent businesses. I also think I can speak for my community in wanting to avoid looking like every other town with a repeat footprint of the same stores and eateries over and over and over again. We also want our downtown businesses to remain unique and sustainable and not become a cute theme park style downtown. McDonald’s is the polar opposite of this aesthetic with its uniform unaesthetic approach to place. And then on the subject of FOOD, Petaluma has no desire to see its farmland fill any further with one color development communities mainly functioning as a bedroom community for work elsewhere. We grow food, exchange bounties, and cook what we are so fortunate to enjoy. Our potatoes are all different sizes, our heirloom seeds (and Seed Bank) are preserving healthy foods for generations unlike the commodity, non-diverse, monocultured, engineered food businesses like a McDonald’s feeds us. Not to mention the handling of the animals that bring the beef to burgers like these. We welcome folks who are like minded to this TRUE hometown and sustainable way of life and who are more likely to buy their burger at McNears (mentioned because the hometown picture here shows the lovely Mystic Theatre which is its neighbor) or another establishment that chooses to serve humanely raised meat. We are a place of artisan cheeses, generations of ranchers, vegetable growers that give back like Greenstring Farm. We respectfully suggest that McDonalds and the virtue of Petaluma as a perfect hometown have little to share.
The Petaluma McDonalds is not in downtown Petaluma, it is on the East Side in an big shopping mall. The charming restaurant is not charming and the egg whites are from factory farm raised, GMO fed chickens. While I give them credit for trying to improve, this is a shameful representation of non-healthy eating at its very worst. I don’t want Petaluma associated with this disgusting restaurant that peddles food that is calorie dense, lacking in nutrition and is responsible along with other fast food restaurants for the horrifying practices on factory farms. UGH!
So, mission accomplished McDonalds.. How many other small towns will they romance in an attempt to reinvigorate their languishing sales and popularity? I cant believe Petaluma fell for it.. McDonalds is still the same unhealthy, uncaring garbage excuse for food it has always been… open your eyes, really?
I cannot believe my Petaluma is OK with this!? First why would such a thriving, fitness oriented, outdoorsy town who prides itself on local produce, dairy, and other farm products want to even be associated with McDonalds on TV? Second, our McDonald’s is probably the crappiest they have! It’s old and outdated and gross. Third, it’s NO WHERE NEAR the beautiful quaint downtown depicted in the video. It’s practically in the “hood” on the “other side of the tracks” across from the great graffitti fence. Nothing wrong with that area but the commercial implies they’re at a McDonald’s in downtown – which doesn’t exist. Last but not least, the last frame with the beautiful woman of color is a joke. When was the last time you saw one of THOSE in Petaluma?!
Petaluma has 3 McDonalds, they are not my favorite place but I do notice each and everyone sponsors your kids in sports,and other school events!
This post just cracks me up!
Thank goodness my friends on the west side will still venture to my home!!!
When I told my kids they were growing up ‘on the wrong side of the tracks,’ they were grateful to know that they may still have some street cred, despite growing up in such a seemingly peaceful place (with beautiful women of color!)
Oh oh! Check again! Lakeville and Payran seems to be on the WEST side of the highway!!!
Shooting a commercial is not “Hollywood”.
The people working on it were probably paid $100 a day for a weeks work tops. And what I love about Petaluma is the fact that this is not a town of chain restaurants and fast food. You’re thinking of Orlando.
I don’t know if anyone else would have noticed this, but in case you missed it: they edited out the signs for both Bici Sport and Shunzi (both locally owned businesses) in post-production. So much for small-town America full of local businesses, huh?
I have lived here for 28 years and after that video of association, I have found myself as a US Veteran and as a born and raised local, to be extremely disappointed and disgusted that the Petaluma association would allow such a blatant disregard to the local attractions that are already here. No they focused on the obesity driving, minimum wage, illegal hiring McDonald’s…WTF
I grew up in Petaluma and now live in San Diego, I miss the small town vibe that Petaluma truly filled me with. I miss real burgers from McNears. I miss that true West Side charm, the shops, bars and restaurants. When I saw there was a McDonald’s in Petaluma commercial I was curious. Especially if it’s supposedly a “charming” one. Then I saw it, and I was sad and confused. Last time I was there, McDonald’s was on the East Side of town…not all that “charming”. I don’t think people should be fooled into associating that fast food restaurant with the closeknit, hometown feel of the West Side’s downtown area, as the commercial implies. Petaluma is a quiet, unassuming, hardworking, self-reliant and self-made style of town. People eat and sell what they grow. There are generations of dairy farmers, and ranchers who humanely raise beef. And it goes back into the community, to local restaurants and more. This is a far cry from the way McDonald’s gets and makes their food. While McDonald’s should probably not have done a commercial in Petaluma at all, but if they had to, I just think they should have done it on the other side of town (you know, where their restaurant is). But Hollywood be honest? Unfortunately that’s unlikely. So Petaluma is stuck with a misleading commercial, but it tells one truth. Petaluma is a quaint town. And Hollywood can never take that away.
Its funny how even a small website called “Positively Petaluma” produces sh*t media, completely disregarding its readers concerns about what their town portrays. While smoking cigarettes in bed with the governing body that accepted the request to use the towns name, maybe you should think about the ten negative comments this has recieved already.
Let’s not lose sight of the POSITIVE side of this story. The vehicle (McDonalds) is not the point. We all hate the exhaust from the cars we drive but we still use them to get around.
Congrats to Marie McCusker and her crew at the Petaluma Downtown Association for a job well done. What an incredible coup. This is FREE publicity which would have otherwise costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I have received messages from friends in Dallas, New York, Boston and St. Louis already who have seen this advertisement showing the desirable side of Petaluma. I also shared this with PetalumaPete.com and PetalumaVideoTour.com.
Our businesses will benefit from this advertisement and we have the PDA to thank for it.
Thank you John!
Thanks John. No one wants the chains to be the dominant view of Petaluma, but if MacDonalds can pay our town to drive people in to visit then we benefit. Anyway, who actually believes what they see in a commercial?
Brilliant marketing by McDs to piggyback off our love for locally sourced food/drink (although, completely misrepresenting McDs from what I recall). While I don’t choose to eat there, I’m curious how detractors believe the city should handle similar corporate media requests. Should it hand select which companies it deems worthy? I have a feeling the negative comments would be similar for McD’s competitors, as well as nearly any other mega-corporation within other industries. I would LOVE to see the exact same commercial with Tea Room, Hallies or one of our other gems… unfortunately, they do not have the budget. FYI- I know from personal experience that there is no other organization in town that works harder to bring visitors into Petaluma than the Petaluma Downtown Association. In fact, at this moment they are juggling three separate events that will bring millions of dollars into our local community.
Thanks Kyle. You make very good points. As far as commercials for locals they are doing fantastic work in this area – one focusing on Kala Brand – check out this video (and they recently released one for Thistle and others) https://youtu.be/YFlJEbnFidc
Basically – just about anything but fast food! Of all things, why start there!?!
Am I the only one who thinks it’s funny that McD’s chose “The World’s Egg Basket” to promote it’s industrially produced egg sandwiches? Will they have a float at this year’s Butter & Egg parade?
I have no problem with McDonalds (the egg McMuffins are delicious …. sorry all you that don’t try them).
I do have a problem with all the chain retailers that are allowed to make Petaluma just another generic American town. That is not why I chose to live here.
Thank your City Councilmen/Councilwomen for that.
Wow! So many entitled opinionaters here. Seems like there is a wall between East and West Petaluma. How many “westerners” go to the east side to shop at Raley’s or Safeway? McDonalds isn’t good enough for Petaluma? Lucky’s, 7-Eleven, Chevron, Dick’s, Target all on the West side? Come on! In case you have been living in a bubble, every town in America has some form of chain business. So jump on the bandwagon for the naive. Bring your pitchforks and torches and chase down the monster. The McDonalds commercial shows Petaluma in a good light. Unfortunately, many of the commenters here are portraying Petaluma as exclusive, and prejudice. I know that not to be true based on the many friends I have in Petaluma. But, it is very surprising to read all the hate towards one well-made commercial that shows the town of Petaluma in a brighter light than some of it’s own citizens. The old saying is true, “One bad apple (or in this case EGG) ruins the whole bunch”.
Click on this creative video, created by a LOCAL advocate in response to the McD commercial:
I was asked by this person if I was going to put “Arches on my piano” in another post on another site after congratulating the PDA for a job well done. I was told by this person that “Petaluma Pete is local but McDonalds?”
I respect this person and, frankly, had a good laugh over it.
I replied by telling this person that I and the music I play is NOT local at all. I started in St. Louis and the music started in Africa where it developed in New Orleans, came up the Mississippi by boat to Chicago and made a hard right for New York before being transported, mostly by rail, during the gold rush, to California. That’s a lot longer trip than any McD eggs from Iowa but thank goodness the local New Orleans folks back then didn’t try to stop it or we would all still be listening to European chamber music played by brown-shoed squares. 🙂
In other words, the entire world is local today and there’s nothing we can do but make the best of it like the Petaluma Downtown Association did for the good of all of us, including this person mentioned above.
Please don’t get me wrong… I agree that McD pushed the envelope as it relates to the use of the word local. I agree that corporations are a giant pain in the butt and the bane of our existence. I guess I’m just a little more realistic in my old age… or just tired.
Regardless, I encouraged this person to keep on keeping on with his great videos and windmill-fighting campaign surrounding this subject because the more he does the more it will heighten awareness of this great town and attract more visitors who will spend more money… LOCALLY.
Fair enough?
Thanks John, and on this video you will note our comment on the video you shared: “It would be great if we can convince McDonalds to purchase their eggs from Petaluma farmers. Thanks for sharing this.” I see no reason why if McDonalds wishes to do local commercials that they too should use local products.
Not a local. Grew up in Central CA. I remember family trips to Petaluma for the day – always fun. I found this web site searching for the reason why Petaluma would ever want to associate it’s self with McDonalds. I understand the business need to attract people but what demographic is Petaluma going for with this commercial? Does a local of Petaluma own McDonalds? It goes onto say that if you don’t live in Petaluma you can still find this sandwich…what does that even mean? Petaluma is not unique? This does not make me want to revisit your town and I already know how special it is. Make better choices. Disappointed from Alaska.
Thank you for the comment. McDonalds can film commercials anywhere they desire. Any company can request a permit to shoot a commercial at a business. The two McDonalds franchises in town are owned by locals. McDonalds did show Petaluma in a favorable light in the commercial. Many commercials (and movies) have been filmed in Petaluma. If you do ever return try to come during the Taste of Petaluma and experience the real local foodie scene – I think you would like it – and our guess is you won’t find McDonalds participating. We interviewed actor Adrian Grenier about our Taste of Petaluma and he seemed to like it – check it out http://www.positivelypetaluma.com/2014/10/19/positively-petaluma-interview-with-actor-adrian-grenier/