In Taco Bell's advertisement, Routine Republic, they take aim at their competitor, McDonald's, and their breakfast selection. The way that Taco Bell does this is by showing how routine a McDonald's breakfast can be. Taco Bell then shows that people don't have to go through that every morning, instead they can escape their boring routine and go to Taco Bell. Over the course of the ad, Taco Bell uncovers other problems that McDonalds has, such as their use of gimmicks to keep customers interested and they way this makes them seem childish. Besides being gimmicky, Taco Bell also hints at the fact that the glory days of McDonald's are behind them by making an allusion to 1984. Taco Bell does this to customers of McDonald's that they are being forced into believing that McDonald's can provide a satisfying breakfast. All of this is depicted in Taco Bell's advertisement through their selection of attractive characters to portray the type of people going to Taco Bell, the city that almost looks abandoned, which is used to represent a McDonald's, and the way the guards were depicted as supposedly intimidating but also dressed as clowns. 

To start out the advertisement, Taco Bell shows a young and attractive man waking up in a crummy apartment, with an out dated TV that has books stacked on top of it, and a window with a view that looks like it came right out of Orwell's 1984. Taco Bell relates McDonald's to 1984 in the ad by having posters everywhere that share the same art style of the big brother posters in 1984. They also make the city seem as aged and broken down as the cities that appear in 1984. Lastly, the way that everybody is being watched and kept under surveillance in the main square of town when they get their food reinforces the idea of big brother being present even more. Taco Bell purposefully relates McDonald's to 1984 because they are trying to show how McDonald's is not as great of a restaurant as they would lead customers to believe, just as the leadership in 1984 would want their citizens to think they were living in a utopian society, even if they weren't. Taco Bell did this as a way to convince the viewers to pick a different restaurant to go to, because nobody would willingly choose to live in a nation that forces its citizens to believe that they are happy even when they're not, so therefore people shouldn't have to resort to a restaurant that they have to be convinced that they like. 

Next, Taco Bell made the man appear smart by placing multiple books on top of the TV, which usually implies that a person is well read and therefore intelligent. The reason Taco Bell made the man seem smart and attractive was so that they could show how even a well-educated and attractive individual could fall into the trap of going to McDonald's for breakfast and have to find a way to escape to a better restaurant. Having the man literally escape from the city to a place where he felt less trapped, which represented a Taco Bell, supports this even more. Also, the whole bleak city that the man is forced to call home before he escapes is supposed to represent a McDonald's restaurant. It is giving the appearance that all McDonald's are old, and filled with people who have given up on life. The people that crowd the square in the advertisement, waiting for an unpleasing breakfast because they have nothing better to brighten their day, are an example of the type of people that Taco Bell wants the viewer to associate with McDonald's. This is done because nobody would want to be a part of that rag tag group, and the only way shown in the commercial to escape this fate was by literally escaping to Taco Bell.

Another reason why Taco Bell's ad is effective is because they show how gimmicky McDonald's is, which makes people think that McDonald's is desperate for customers and resorting to gimmicks, which most people find pathetic. This is shown in the way that the guards in the advertisement all have clown faces while at the same time trying to be intimidating to the people in line waiting for food. It is like they are trying to have more people eat in that city by having clowns, which are usually entertaining and fun, but instead they end up pushing people away because they then try to have those same clowns act like security that needs to be taken seriously. This is just like how McDonald's attempts to pass itself off as being a serious restaurant, even though their "mascot" is a clown, which appeals mostly to the children in families. This just makes McDonald's seem childish and therefore can make people think they are a joke. Taco Bell wants people to think that McDonald's is a joke so that people believe that it is only suitable for children to eat there, and if a person were an adult then they would want to eat somewhere else like at Taco Bell. Taco Bell then shows through their advertisement that McDonald's knows this, and will do anything to keep people from taking their business elsewhere. Taco Bell hints at this with the walls and field of explosives that surround people in the advertisement, preventing them from going somewhere else for breakfast. The difficulty of escaping McDonald's grasp is shown through the way that in order to get out of the city, people had to start a resistance and orchestrate an escape plan. This helps put the idea into the viewer's head that McDonald's is desperate to keep customers and will do anything to make sure they don't go somewhere else, whereas at the Taco Bell, it seemed better because people appeared to be able to come and go as they pleased. 

The Taco Bell commercial also tries to promote how good Taco Bell's own breakfast food is. Having only young and attractive looking college students eating their food in the advertisement does this. This shows the difference between the breakfast sold at Taco Bell and McDonald's by making it seem as though the breakfast at McDonald's is for an older generation, and the breakfast at Taco Bell is for the newer generation of adults that are just entering the real world. This was done because Taco Bell's slogan "The next generation of breakfast" is trying to convey the image that Taco Bell is where the new and hip generation of people go to get food. This was supported in the advertisement by having old and dirty people eating the McDonald's breakfast, while the people eating at Taco Bell seemed much happier and appeared to have their life more in order. The way that the people eating at the McDonald's looked as if they were getting ready for another unrewarding days work made the people who were just enjoying a leisurely breakfast at Taco Bell seem even happier. Another way that Taco Bell was making their products appear better was by showing that there is more than one option. For example, people were eating different breakfast items from Taco Bell, while everyone at the McDonald's was eating the same bland looking breakfast sandwich.  If people were given a choice then they would choose the one that has more options and will most likely have something to make them happy, which is what Taco Bell wants people to believe that they can do.  

