Naperville families find fame in McDonald's Super Bowl ad
A trip to McDonald's is turning into a few seconds of fame in a Super Bowl ad for two Naperville families.
The Conley and Ramsburg families showed up separately around lunchtime Dec. 6 to the McDonald's at Route 59 and Brookdale Road - hungry and unsuspecting.
Both families ordered their food and were met with an unusual response - they didn't have to pay.
There were a few clues along the way that something was cooking in the restaurant other than Big Macs and Quarter Pounders. There was the videographer partially hidden behind a wall. The people holding clipboards. The large trailer parked outside.
But the Conleys and Ramsburgs found out only Thursday that the result of their free meal would be a role in a minute-long TV commercial during the second quarter of Sunday's Super Bowl.
"It's just crazy how you take your family to lunch one day and the next thing you know, you're on the mecca of advertising on the Super Bowl," Dale Ramsburg said.
The families are part of an ad in which McDonald's explains it will randomly select customers from Feb. 2 to 14 to pay with "Lovin'" instead of money. Some customers in the commercial dance or "raise the roof."
Others place phone calls to say "I love you" to a relative.
"We ordered our food and the lady behind the counter says, 'Your payment today for your meal is to give a big family hug,'" Ramsburg said.
His first response?
"Huh?"
"She's like, 'Yeah, give a big family hug,'" Ramsburg said.
So he and his 8-year-old daughter, Grace, and 12-year-old son, Adam, "hug it out."
The hug makes a quick appearance near the end of the commercial, after Ramsburg's neighbor in the Brookdale subdivision, Judy Conley, shares what she loves about her 13-year-old son, Aidan.
"I love his compassion for other people," Conley said when the cashier asked her to "pay with 'Lovin.'"
Once these families and others filmed in Naperville and Chicago ate their free meals, they were asked to sign waivers so their images could be used.
Weeks later, Ramsburg and Conley said they got calls from representatives of Leo Burnett advertising agency saying their clips were in the preliminary cut of a commercial, so more contracts had to be signed.
"We had to join the Screen Actors Guild, which is hysterical," Conley said.
Not everyone in Conley's family made the final cut, which has sparked some mild sibling envy from 10-year-old twins Ashley and Connor.
Ashley, who has Down syndrome just like Ramsburg's daughter Grace, especially wanted to be a McDonald's spokeswoman because she "would go there every day if she could," her mom said.
Ashley has a speech delay, but that doesn't prevent her from ordering her favorite meal.
"One of the first phrases we taught her to say is how to order a cheeseburger, french fries and a sundae at McDonald's," Conley said.
Even without any airtime for Ashley, the Conleys' Super Bowl festivities will involve more people than usual to catch the commercial live.
"I love the theme that they did," Conley said. "I love my son and it was really touching."