How McDonald’s is luring kids

MUMMY bloggers spreading the word, teachers selling Happy Meals to kids: this is how McDonald’s has perfected the art of marketing to children.

MOTHERS spreading the word, teachers selling Happy Meals: McDonald’s has perfected the art of marketing to children without marketing to children.

US website MotherJones has compiled an interesting list of the top five devious tactics the Golden Arches uses to get its products in front of children.

According to the website, Maccas’s has mastered the art of so-called “out-of-restaurant kids’ programs” by partnering with local schools on branded educational events and fundraisers.

One such program, called ‘McTeacher’s Night’, makes it so teachers can actually sell McDonald’s to their students — all in the name of fundraising, of course.

Through the program, teachers and staff work in their local McDonald’s for a few hours, with a portion of the sales made during their shift going back to support their school.

According to MotherJones, these events typically draw a crowd, as students and their families get a kick out of hearing “their favourite teachers say ‘Do you want fries with that?’”

Kids get a kick out of hearing their teachers say, ‘Do you want fries with that?’

Through another program called ‘Mom’s Quality Correspondents’, McDonald’s recruits groups of American mothers to attend a program about the fast-food chain’s food safety, quality and nutrition, and then “build trust with other moms, and spread the McDonald’s food quality story”.

Or as Consumerist puts it: “Essentially, it’s a handful of moms espousing McDonald’s talking points and hoping that other parents will listen.”

On the campaign’s website, ‘Quality Correspondent’ Tonia Welling writes that her impressions of McDonald’s have changed since being involved in the program.

“Before our trips, I didn’t think I would learn anything, really, that would change my perception that McDonald’s was anything but junk food,” she writes.

Mothers are recruited to spread the good word to other mums.

“Going into McDonald’s to grab a meal doesn’t leave me feeling completely guilty any more. I know I have options to feed my family a nutritious meal out, just as I am able to feed them a nutritious meal at home. It’s all about my choices.”

Through another program, McDonald’s teaches teenagers work skills while getting them to work for free. The week-long ‘Camp Mickey Ds’ summer program teaches students to work the registers, serve food and make their own lunches.

According to the Civil Eats blog, McDonald’s targeting kids is a deliberate strategy to revive its flagging sales. In a December conference call, then-CEO Don Thompson and president Mike Andres reportedly told investors that McDonald’s has “got to be in the schools”.

They added that “when you look at the performance relative to peers of the operators [whose] restaurants are part of the community — it’s significant”.