Hey Kids! This is advertising!
Alternate titles:
-Have you had your blog today?
-McDonald’s is marketing to kids. What else is new?
-McBlog
I don’t eat at McDonald’s. I have watched Super Size Me. I have been known to rail against McDonaldization and the bad business practices of corporations like McDonald’s.
But I am willing to put these feelings aside for you, my loyal reader (yes, you may be the only one), in an effort to objectively analyze one of McDonald’s new media marketing efforts.
When you get a chance, check out HappyMeal.com. This site is McDonald’s way of reaching out to the kiddies who are still a large part of the company’s target audience and who may be encouraging their parents and other family members to go to McDonald’s. The site features games and activities for kids, featuring what I am assuming to be the sponsor of the moment, Dreamwork’s Escape to Madagascar 2 movie.
The message that hits me the most when I first log into Happy Meal is the “One Minute to Move it!” message. This ties into the movie’s theme song and McDonald’s efforts to promote physical activity to offset their fattening food. The games seem harmless enough; most seem like kid-oriented versions of adult games found on Pogo.com.
Is this site marketing to kids in an ethical way? Let’s save the argument about whether or not marketing to kids is an ethical practice to begin with for another day. As long as kids are still able to influence the purchases of their parents, kids will continue to be a target for advertisers. In my opinion, the best we can do, as marketers, is to try to be as ethical as possible in our efforts to build relationships between youngsters and brands. Our gut instinct can be a good litmus test for the ethics of our efforts (think: would I send this message to my kids?), but its important to consider research and industry standards for marketing to children as well. This may be the only way to justify your enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm for a particular campaign to your boss.
Parents for Ethical Marketing, for example, has put forth these guidelines for “responsible marketing standards and practices that sustain the health of children and families.”
- Ethical marketing targets only consumers who can perceive and understand the persuasive tactics in commercials.
- Ethical marketing promotes products that are not harmful to children.
- Ethical marketing supports strong families by respecting parental authority in the parent-child relationship.
Does McDonald’s promote products that are harmful to children? Arguably yes. The majority of the food choices, and probably the most popular food choices, are unhealthy. But McDonald’s has been offering healthier options for Happy Meals, and this site heavily advertises those options, as opposed to french fries and soda. And, their efforts to promote physical activity may be contrived, but they are certainly not harmful.
I wouldn’t say there is a whole lot of “ask your parents first”-type messages on this site, but there is a separate page for parents, with an internet safery quiz for kids and parents to complete together and an upcoming feature that would notify parents about their child’s activities on the Happy Meal site. So, I suppose in this sense, the site is promoting parental authority.
The aspect of this site that I appreciate most is their efforts to remind kids about the persuasive tactics being used. On the first page of HappyMeal.com is the message “Hey Kids, this is advertising.” McDonald’s efforts at transparency when marketing to kids is important, since children can’t always make this distinction. There are also no banner ads from outside companies on this site, although there is product placement from Madagascar 2 throughout. But the fact that the whole site is advertising for McDonalds, and is clearly labelled as such, is a positive thing, in my view, because it is easy for a kid to figure out. They are on a site called Happy Meal, and they buy Happy Meals at McDonalds. I think children will understand this, especially with guidance from their parents.
Parents, of course, should be monitoring their child’s activity on the web, and messages like this are a good prompt for parents to begin a dicussion with their child about advertising. Helping kids understand marketing messages will make them savvy consumers and may help reduce the amount of whiny, I-gotta-have-this arguments over purchases. If kids understand how marketers are trying to influence them, they may think about why they really want a particular product. Or maybe not, but its worth a try!
McDonald’s offers a fact sheet on their main site, explaining their responsible efforts to communicate with children and families, including maintaining age-appropriate portion sizes in Happy Meals, providing nutritional information for parents, Ronald McDonald events and tv commercials to encourage physical activity, and the Media Smart media literacy program for kids.
I’ve looked at several websites that target children, and while this site is not the best, it is not the worst, by far.
What do you think about this site? Is this a responsible way to market a product to children? Is there such a thing?
