McDonald's Courts a New Coke-Level Menu Disaster

The fast-food giant is making some big changes to its signature product and historically that type of move has not gone well.

People like comfort food because it's familiar. It tastes the same as it always has, bringing back memories of better times and delivering exactly the experience you expect.

In the fast-food space, people are fine when chains change items people never liked. Restaurant Brands International's (QSR) - Get Free Report Burger King can roll out new fries and chicken nuggets every six months if wants to because the current models have few fans.

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When you mess with a classic, however, you risk outrage from your fanbase. Yum Brands (YUM) - Get Free Report Taco Bell faced a backlash when it brought back its Mexican Pizza because people thought they had made changes. The chain insisted it didn't and the social media furor died down, but messing with a classic recipe can have hugely negative consequences.

That's a lesson most famously learned by Coca-Cola (KO) - Get Free Report, which changed the recipe from its signature cola in 1985. To say people didn't like "New" Coke is like saying that "Speed 2: Cruise Control" was not as well received as the first film -- it's a very polite way to describe what was more anger than anyone could possibly expect over a soda recipe being changed.

Now, Coke may have been pulling off a giant publicity stunt so it could bring back "Classic" Coke, which it did a few months later, but the company has always denied that the entire debacle was planned. Very few products have the legacy of Coca-Cola's namesake soda, but McDonald's (MCD) - Get Free Report hamburgers may very well be as beloved and as comfortingly familiar to people.

Now, McDonald's is making some changes to its burgers and while it's being very careful in how it's marketing those changes, the company runs the risk of a massive backlash.

Here's What's Happening to McDonald's Burgers      

McDonald's has rolled out its changes very carefully saying that it's making "small but tasty improvements" to the Big Mac, McDouble burger, and its classic Cheeseburger, Double Cheeseburger, and Hamburger. These are the changes:

• Softer, pillowy buns that are freshly toasted to a golden brown
• Perfectly melted cheese that will make you want to savor every last bit off the wrapper
• Juicier, caramelized flavor from adding white onions to the patties while they’re still on the grill
• Even more of everyone’s favorite Big Mac sauce, bringing more tangy sweetness in every Big Mac bite

Those all seem like improvements, but people don't go to McDonald's for a good burger, they go to McDonald's for a familiar burger. Few would argue that Five Guys, BurgerFi (BFI) - Get Free Report, and lots of other chains have superior hamburgers to what McDonald's offers, but people still flock to the Golden Arches.

Making a change to the recipe, even these small ones, puts that at risk.

McDonald's Is Taking a Major Risk

New Coke was a slight tweak to the Coca-Cola recipe. It was something the company began testing after its still-dominant signature product had lost market share for 15 years. That led to the company quietly testing a new formula and launching it, only to face a massive backlash.

Coca-Cola explained what happened on a company website.

"The fabled secret formula for Coca-Cola was changed, adopting a formula preferred in taste tests of nearly 200,000 consumers. What these tests didn't show, of course, was the bond consumers felt with their Coca-Cola -- something they didn't want anyone, including The Coca-Cola Company, tampering with."

That's the exact hornet's nest McDonald's is kicking. It's changing something people have great affection for that they don't think is broken. That may not lead to a New Coke backlash, but that is the risk the company is taking and history is not on its side.

You can't really quantify why people like McDonald's burgers (they're inherently a pretty low-end product) and that's exactly the type of bond people had with Coca-Cola. These changes may become beloved, or they may mostly not be noticed, but they could be resoundingly rejected by an audience that wants their McDonald's exactly as crummy as they remember it.