McDonalds’ Unethical Marketing to Children When doing marketing initiatives to children, there are many factors that needs to be considered such as addressing the worries of parents, responsibility in contents which should be children-friendly and the full advertising disclosure. McDonalds, one of the major fast food around the globe has been sadly involved in ethical case concerning marketing that are targeted to manipulate children in advertising the Happy Meal product (Megekerr, 2013). 20% of the sales of McDonalds consists the sales of toys, making them the largest distributors of children toys. The Happy Meal advertisement started in 1979 targeting children as target audience and its popularity had been very rapid, particularly in the Fun Box, which has a toy
To begin with, by high school one out of three young adults will have type two diabetes. Type two diabetes forces people to constantly have to check their blood sugar and take shots daily so you don’t get incredibly ill, and die. An incredibly great second example is, advertiser and companies use cartoon characters and celebrities to make children new to life, want them; compelling them to think they love the product even though they are being deceived by a picture of a toucan. Also some very educated people are saying that many people won’t live very long. A quote that proves this is from a news article called Marketing to kids gets more savvy with new technology, “we have a generation that is the first to have a life expectancy less than our parents.” That is so hard to believe but it is true!
Most Advertisers burn hundreds of billions dollars just to encourage, persuade and manipulate customers and lead them towards a materialistic lifestyle, based on expenditure. Children’s are vulnerable to these advertisement manipulations so they end up being the most preferred target of marketers all over the world. The money spent on marketing activities directed to children has grown explosively in the last 15 years. Some of the Advertising, as promoting instrument, is the center point of a strong controversy, because of the deficiencies it holds: Enhances the consumers’ materialism; Lack sincerity; Raises the products’ sell
This is a reason fast food companies often use subliminal advertising targeted at children. It is well known that poor eating habits in children transfer into later life; childhood obesity is one of the number one health challenges facing our young population. Consequently, a common issue that arises is often emotional and psychological, these children are often bullied by their peers and even their family. Furthermore, childhood obesity can also lead to life-threatening health conditions including diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, heart disease, and even cancer. Today’s society provides easy access to calorie dense, fattening, foods and snacks.
Their health can also be affected incredibly, if they eat fast food way too much. Their money can also be majorly affected by advertisements if they choose to spend money on worthless products. The role of advertising in the lives of youth is extremely important, it makes or breaks their decisions with money, health and what they do with their life. To start us off, marketing companies may say that they are just “doing their job” but, in reality they are just taking advantage of every aspect of youth’s lives, including school! Like sometimes I’ll walk around school and I see a group of kids wearing a bunch of thrasher magazine t-shirts.
And all these items are always follow the trend of the society. For example, the trend of the movie “Despicable Me” is very hot when it just published in few days, McDonald’s has cooperated with the film’s manager and get the right to produce the items that related to this movie like the ‘minion’ toy series. Then McDonald’s come out with a promotion which is if consumers buy the ‘Happy Meal’, one set of food in McDonald’s menu, they can get a ‘minion’ from the set. Therefore, a lot of fans of the movie may intentionally go to buy ‘Happy Meal’ just for ‘minion’ toys. The company clearly know the trend of movie only can choose which is the best should they cooperate with in order to increase the sales and the decision that make also applies to this
Sells person and staff are provided training for treating customers in good manner. Place is kept clean. Fresh food is given. • Innovation McDonalds constantly innovates new product in the menu for increasing the customers and keeping the customer excited. • Toys for kids Since kids like toys and fast food the McDonalds keep providing new kind of toy relating to new cartoons films.
Fast food advertising is an issue of a broad importance due to its profound negative influence on children’s food choices and parents buying behavior in the Middle East mainly as it attracts people through several mediums and themes on a daily basis. Thus, causing unhealthy eating habits and an increase in the consumption of junk food that initiates negative health effects. Also, fast food advertising develops a great tendency in the Middle Eastern society and the Malaysian to eat western style fast foods, which reduces from the cultural values of people and creates a shift from traditional foods and a growing demand for western fast food outlets that rise from the western culture influence and globalization on the society. This argumentative research paper sheds a light on the negative aspects of fast food advertisements and the consequences of them on the society. It has become clear throughout this research that fast food advertisements influence on children and parents have reached an alarming level of concern and targeting children specifically can have an evocative impact on their food choices and health.
However, the marketing geniuses cash in on this feeling of the parents and price their products exorbitantly high. Shopping for kids can be very confusing if you are a new parent. This is how we saved loads of money while purchasing for our young one. Using the following tips, you can be smart shoppers saving money and giving your kids the best at the same
Studies show that children exert more influence on the family purchasing decision for products they use than for those they do not. However, children have a significant influence on the purchase of products and services used by all the family. According to one study, children exert considerable influence on the purchase of cars, holidays, TV and other technological products (Soni and Singh, 2003). Such influence is directly proportional to the financial risk and level of the need of the child for the product in question (Mangleburg and Tech, 1990). The more expensive the products demanded by the children are, the more rejecting are the parents (Guven and Babaogul, 1997).