Director of Marketing for McDonald's Canada.

I'm here with a question from Isabel M., from Toronto, Ontario.

She asks, "Why does your food look different in the advertising"

"than what is in the store?"

It's a great question, Isabel. We get asked that a lot.

And if you want to come with me,

I'm going to take you across the street

and we're going to find out a bit more. C'mon!

>> HOPE: Hello!

>> MCDONALD'S EMPLOYEE: Hi!

>> HOPE: Could I please order a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?

Thank you, thank you so much!

Here's my hot and fresh Quarter Pounder with Cheese!

Oh, it looks good!

Look at this beauty!

We'll put this one back in the box.

We're going to go over to our photo studio

and see a little bit more about behind the scenes,

what happens at a photo shoot.

So we're en route to Watt Photo Studios.

Watt has been our agency,

doing all of our merchandising creative,

for probably about seven years.

What we're going to do here is

we're actually going to put the burger

that you saw me just buy...

we're going to put it side-by-side next to a burger

that we going to actually craft from scratch,

with our food stylist and our photographer.

We're going to compare what's different about the two.

I've just bought this Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

It's as hot off the press as it can be.

>> NEIL: Good.

>> HOPE: So maybe we just put that in and get a photo of it,

so we can use that for comparison.

>> NEIL: So we'll keep the camera, the lights and everything the same.

It will be a direct comparison of the right side of both burgers.

>>HOPE:Perfect, that makes total sense.

What I'm going to do is introduce you now to Noah,

who is our food stylist.

Ohâ that burger was made in about a minute or so.

The process we go through on the average shoot takes several hours.

And here, I think it's important to note

that all the ingredients that Noah uses

are the exact same ingredients that we use in the restaurant.

So it's the exact same patties,

it's the exact same ketchup, mustard and onions.

And the exact same buns.

Almost ready for you, Neil.

>>NOAH: Hey Neil.

>>NEIL: We want to be able to show

the pickles and the condiments as we build.

HOPE:Right.

NEIL:In the store, they would naturally

just line it up, straight in line.

We have to bring it back a little bit,

to reveal the fact that it comes

with the pickles and the slivered onions.

>>NOAH: Because we're in a one-dimensional world in the camera,

everything is in the back in the picture.

I don't know what's actually in it.

This way, we can at least tell people

you have ketchup, you have mustard,

you have two pieces of cheese

and you know what you're getting.

>>HOPE: Perfect onion selection.

It's like you're a surgeon in there.

>>NEIL:Because we've had to put things forward,

the bun is sitting crooked.

So he's just compensating...

>>NOAH: So Hope, I'm just melting down the cheese with my palette knife.

Maybe I'll put mustard, ketchup...

actually, ketchup, mustard, ketchup.

>>NOAH: You ready?

>>NEIL: Yep.

>>HOPE: Oh, beautiful!

>>NOAH: That's nice.

>>HOPE: This burger looks pretty good as is.

I don't think it's going to need much retouching whatsoever.

Let me introduce you to Stuart Murray.

He's going to take the side-by-side comparison

and do a little finessing of the product.

The less amount of retouching that we do to something,

the less perfect it looks.

But actually, it looks more appetizing and more convincing.

Just enhancing some colour,

taking out some of the little accidents that might happen in preparation,

which obviously doesn't show the product in its best possible light.

Here you can definitely see that there is a size difference.

The box that our sandwiches come in keep the sandwiches warm,

which creates a bit of a steam effect,

and it does make the bun contract a little bit.

And then the main difference is the fact that

we actually took all the ingredients

that are normally hidden under the bun

and we pulled them to the foreground,

so that you could see them.

And those are the main differences.

So Isabel, thank you so much for your question,

and we hope that's answered it for you.

Thanks.