McDonald's is trying to take advantage of the recession to crush Starbucks by flooding America with cheap, faux-fancy McCafé coffeé. Despité the nation's most annoyingé ad campaigné, McD's is winning the battle for the (formerly) yuppié soul:

McDonald's Corp.'s sales rose 5.1% last month as the fast-food chain continued to attract consumers amid the global recession and rising unemployment...this year's results were aided by the introduction of new McCafe coffee beverages.

McDonald's message is this: "Now you have a good excuse to buy a cheap ass burger while you pick up your daily tub of coffee, yuppies." Clear, direct, and honest. Meanwhile, the chief marketing guy at Starbucks is like "McD's will recruit all these new yuppies who will get tired of drinking their swill and trade up to our swill!" while glancing around nervously, adding, "Yea, that's the ticket. 'Trading up.' Yea, I like the sound of that." We all know you're toast, Starbucks man.

The joke on both of them is that there are no yuppies left. Only wretches.
[Ad Age, WSJ. Pic: mm mcderomott's Flickr]

Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.