McDonald's Goes Green: Insanity, or Brilliance

From the "This has to be a hoax" department:


McDonald's is going green — swapping its traditional red backdrop for a deep hunter green — to promote a more eco-friendly image in Europe.
About 100 German McDonald's restaurants will make the change by the end of 2009, the company said in a statement Monday. Some franchises in Great Britain and France have already started using the new color scheme behind their Golden Arches.
"This is not only a German initiative but a Europewide initiative," Martin Nowicki, McDonald's Germany spokesman, told The Associated Press.
Dropping more than a half-century's worth of branding in favor of a consumer trend towards "greener" products? Has McDonald's gone mad?


...or is it branding genius? Since so many of their competitors (Wendy's, BK, In-n-Out) have the classic red/yellow color combo, could they be leveraging part of their massive brand equity to disrupt the fast-food market landscape?


I have to say, I'm actually in favor of this unbelievable act of brand maverickism...renegadism...risktakingism...


What would we call this, exactly?!!

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