• by Karl Greenberg , May 5, 2009

Tired of hearing people at Starbucks saying "I'll have a half-caf, skinny, sugar-free latte grande Mocha with a sudsy hood and white walls"? Now you can hear all that at McDonald's! The chain is launching McCafé coffees.

 

The new line, starting Tuesday, includes lattes, cappuccinos and mochas. To launch the line, McDonald's is doing ads and giving consumers a chance to win a $50,000 Visa Gift card and other prizes through an online contest and sweepstakes at www.mcdonalds.com/mccafe.

The ad push with a McCafé Your Day motif has a message that any prosaic experience can be apotheosized -- or at least Francophiled -- and earn a diacritical mark in the process with the addition of a McCafé coffee drink. The morning commute becomes a commuté, and the office cubicle becomes a cubiclé.

Jessie Thompson, a manager of U.S. Communications at McDonald's, is doing a Twitter campaign at McCafeYourDay, where Thompson fields questions about McCafé, while keeping them posted on the "McCafé Your Day" Contest and Sweepstakes.

McCafé Coffees are available at more than 11,000 McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. McCafé Coffee prices vary by restaurant, and they can be purchased with cash, McDonald's Arch Cards or other forms of cashless payment options at the drive-thru or in the restaurant.

Through June 21, consumers can visit www.mcdonalds.com/mccafe to submit a story and photo about why they or someone they know deserves a chance to be one of two grand prize winners, each taking home a $50,000 Visa Gift card and $500 McDonald's Arch Card. Five finalists will be selected by an independent panel, with the two grand prize winners selected on August 3 after an online consumer vote.