McDonald's Changes Color Scheme of Iconic Arches

(MoneyWatch)  McDonald's (MCD) restaurants across Europe are removing the red background behind the golden arches logo and replacing it with green. The change is supposed to make customers associate the company with a commitment to the environment.

"We want to clarify our responsibility for the preservation of natural resources. In the future we will put an even larger focus on that," McDonald's Germany VP Holger Beeck said in a statement.

The green arches are only appearing in Europe, of course; for some reason, most major chains tend to be more active on both the environment and animal well-being on the other side of the Atlantic. It's hard to imagine Americans responding well to such a dramatic change in the familiar, ubiquitous McDonald's logo.

Then again, the Irish Times referenced the U.S. president in its own peculiar explanation of why green was been chosen: "Colour psychologists suggested that McDonald's red was the most likely in the spectrum to stimulate heart rate and appetite - green, meanwhile, is viewed as the colour of hope, the 'Barack Obama' of the colour spectrum."

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