Statement: Suit McDonald's Cue to Stop Predatory Marketing Altogether

For Immediate Release: June 22, 2010

 

Contact: Christina Rossi, 617-447-2540

 

Today our partners at the Center for Science in the Public Interest have said enough is enough, notifying McDonald’s it will be filing suit against the corporation if it does not halt using toys in Happy Meals. CSPI’s notice letter says that McDonald’s toy-related promotions violate state consumer protection laws in Massachusetts, Texas, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, and California. CSPI’s letter gives McDonald’s 30 days to agree to stop the practice before a suit is filed.

 

McDonald’s has been in the hot seat of late for its long-standing and pioneering practice of peddling junk food to children…especially our very youngest children, for which predatory marketing is no less than exploitative.

 

Corporate Accountability International, its partners, and supporters have called attention to the role such marketing is playing in making our children sick by calling for an end to the use of the world’s most recognized corporate mascot, Ronald McDonald. In so doing, the organization has advocated for an end to the universe of youth-oriented marketing practices in which Ronald is the center.

 

The human impact of McDonald’s predatory marketing is undeniable. Each year, the corporation spends hundreds of millions marketing to kids not just in the absent hope that this will lead kids to crave its food, but because it is profoundly effective.

 

The proof is not only in the sales, but in the disease rates. One in three children born today will become diabetic during their lifetime as a result of a McDonald’s-style diet. And even for those who don’t need to guard their children against today’s toxic advertising landscape, there is a $147 billion annual health care tab to pick-up for treating conditions related to diet.

 

Still McDonald’s continues to substitute public relations for real marketing reform – reform that could vastly improve the health of our children.

 

For instance, since the launch of Corporate Accountability International’s Value [the] Meal campaign, McDonald’s has reduced the amount it spends on advertising during children’s programs. What has not been reported is how many of those dollars have shifted from television advertisements to social media, in an effort to reach children in environments that are more difficult for parents to constantly monitor and control.

 

McDonald’s has also responded to a public climate that favors retiring children’s junk food marketing icons, and prominent initiatives like Retire Ronald, by scaling back Ronald’s appearances in mass media. In McDonald’s-speak however, this means the corporation will instead be using the hamburger-happy clown “in a more targeted fashion toward children,” such as, again, placing Ronald McDonald in environments that are harder for parents to control like schools, libraries, and, ironically, pediatric clinics. 

 

And McDonald’s Orwellian manipulations don’t stop there.       In response to parental concerns around the use of Happy Meals to attract children to foods high in fat, salt, sugar, and calories, McDonald’s pledged to only advertise Happy Meals that met its own nutrition standards.

 

But again, patrons have to read between the lines. Not only are nutrition standards devised by the world’s leading burger salesman questionable at best, the alternatives being offered are really no alternative at all (apple dippers with a sugary caramel dipping sauce, for example). What’s worse, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has found it exceedingly rare for clerks to even offer such “alternatives” at the register. 

 

In all, McDonald’s pledge was some small concession when the real vehicle for Happy Meal promotions is not actually the food in the box, but the seemingly ubiquitous toy promotions for everything from Shrek characters to Barbie dolls. After all, McDonald’s is the standard bearer for what the American Psychological Association calls “the most common persuasive strategy employed in advertising…to associate the product with fun and happiness, rather than to provide any factual product-related information.”

 

For this reason, we commend CSPI’s action and encourage McDonald’s to do the right thing and drop its use of toys before the suit goes to trial. This is an opportunity for McDonald’s to stop parading its public relations around as corporate responsibility and to start responding directly to the very real concerns of parents, health professionals, and educators across the country.

 

As the most profitable fast food corporation, McDonald’s can set an example to countless emulators and competitors. And that example needn’t be yet another half-measure. It should be the retirement of all predatory marketing to children from toy promotions to the use of Ronald McDonald.