Two guys who created a fake McDonald's poster featuring themselves are now starring in a commercial for the chain. (Twitter/Jevholution )
Two McDonald’s customers in Texas who turned themselves into the subjects of a prank ad they hung inside the fast-food restaurant are now starring in a new commercial for the chain.
Jehv Maravilla, 21, and his friend Christian Toledo, 25, noticed a lack of representation in the marketing materials at a McDonalds in Pearland, near Houston.
“We were eating McDonald’s one day and we looked around and saw there were posters around that didn’t have any Asians,” Maravilla told KHOU 11. “They had other races but no Asians so we felt like it was our duty to put ourselves up there.”
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So Maravilla and Toledo, both Filipino-American, decided to create their own ad for a blank space on the wall. “Asian representation in media is not as prevalent as it should be,” Maravilla told KPRC Click2Houston.
Maravilla and Toledo went to work on their poster in June. They modeled for the photo, holding a McDonald’s burger and fries, then edited it to look like the other images hanging inside the restaurant.
The fake ad remained at the restaurant unnoticed for 51 days, but when Maravilla tweeted about it in September, the prank went viral, receiving over 175,000 retweets and 705,000 likes.
Now, McDonald’s has cast Maravilla and Toledo in a new commercial for the restaurant, flying the two men to Los Angeles for three days to shoot the ad.
“The commercial that we were a part of kind of highlighted Asians in there too, as well as other minorities, so I’m glad that that was a big step for them to have us be part of that,” Maravilla told Fox 26.
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A spokesperson for the restaurant told Fox News: “McDonald’s commitment to diversity is a core tenet of our brand as it reflects all our customers. We enjoyed having Jevh and Christian star in one of our latest marketing campaigns to celebrate their hard work and creativity, and appreciate the dialogue they initiated with their poster.”