McDonald’s avoids PR activity around food marketing ‘shame’ awards
McDonald’s has decided to avoid a PR offensive around the Parents’ Jury Fame and Shame Awards, which in recent years has attacked how the burger chain markets to children.
Only Kellogg’s, which launched a pre-emptive strike against claims made by the awards last week to “defend our proud 80-year heritage from potentially misleading communications,” has suffered worse publicity as a result of the annual Fame and Shame Awards, which launched in 2005.
A McDonald’s spokesperson told Mumbrella that the company’s PR agencies – which include Mango Communications – had not been briefed and there was “no extra PR activity” planned around the event.
She added that McDonald’s was part of the Australian Quick Service Restaurant Industry Initiative for Responsible Advertising and Marketing to Children and took these responsibilities “extremely seriously”.
I have nominated the Parent’s Jury for “Longetivity in denying Fat Kid Problem is parental laziness or stupidity” award in the AdGrunt awards.
I think the PJ’s will win based on their:
Faultless inability to support parents in saying no.
Allowing parents to abdicate basic responsibility
Unerringly failing to explain how children are affording these items
Nor explain how kids smuggle said foods into the house without their parents stopping them.
Love the Parent’s Jury – I have become much more aware of how advertisement companies are using children to sell their products and the impact it is haivng on our family when we go to the shops.
It sounds like the big companies who use strategies targeting children are taking the fame and shame awards seriously; I’m looking forward to seeing the results.
I really thought that a parent would be more influential than a TV ad? I guess its easier to blame someone else.
Hear Hear Nat! A lot easier to point the finger at the big, fat, greedy corporates these days it seems!
Hey Nat… got kids?
and before you say… “well parents should be this and that”… No matter how diligent and good the parents, pester power works…
Pester Power is an arrow in the marketing quiver… from toys, to vitamins, to food, to clothes…
As a parent, we treat these type of foods as “sometimes foods” – that doesn’t stop the requests everytime you see the fast food red restaurants…
Unfortunately, there are parents that ARE too stupid to know the difference, and others that are too busy (or lazy as AdGrunt puts it) to put the health of their children as a priority. That is when other parents, or the wider community steps up to the plate to try and get the message across. As a parent I do not let any of that crappy food near my children. As a teacher, it’s all I hear about and see every day in lunchboxes. Of course there needs to be an organisation like Parent Jury! Teachers see the immediate consequences, but soon it will be the wider community paying through taxes for the ill-health of the next generation. And no-one wants that outcome, do they?
Doug, “No” is the strongest arrow in a parent’s quiver. It trumps anything a marketer can throw.
You can say No to them watching commercial TV.
You can educate them about how delicious and colourful natural foods are.
You can explain that sweet foods are for stupid, lazy kids with stupid, lazy parents.
If you are too soft / guilty / lazy to assert this firmly but fairly to your children, then you will reap the rewards of the seeds you – yes YOU – have sown.
@adgrunt it’s not about being too soft/guilty/lazy. I say no to this all the time but when advertisements let a child believe that junk food is fun, delicious and normal and I am saying it’s not, it is a constant battle that I am sick of having to fight. When the advertiser goes one step further and teaches a child how to pester an adult into getting the food they want to sell, that is clearly manipulating a child for the purpose of creating sales. ps explaining to a child that ‘sweet foods are for stupid, lazy kids with stupid, lazy parents’? – don’t think I’ll be taking any parenting advice from you.
I dont even have kids (yet) but based on my experience with nieces and nephews the constant nagging must drive parents crazy. The more that kids are influenced by external factors (eg junk food ads) the more they will pester for junk foods. If we removed one part of the equation the job of parents would be easier. It’s a combination of factors that will help reduce the obesity problem, it shouldnt be just left to parents.
In my day my mum said no to everything – but there was nowhere near the amount of external factors pushing me to whinge for things
Okay upfront I’m a mum. And I say knock yourself out Kellogs and McDonalds and whoever what to help support kids based activities. Finding sponsors is hard work and the benefits of running these programs far outweighs the implication of brands doing the subversive wrong thing. Healthy eating habits begins in the home and at a vey early age so just stick to your guns.
I had to put up with my kids telling obese people “Coke makes you fat you know” but I can happily say my kids prefer water to fizzy drinks just because it was never an option for them. For my sons first happy meal (at a kids party) he wanted a sausage roll in his. So disappointed at how bad it tasted, he hasn’t asked for another one yet.
And finally mums and dads of this world If you dont like the ads, bring your kids up on the ABC or turn the TV off altogether!
NO advertising, no sponsorship no point of sale and we will stil have fat kids eating junk food as the parents are taking the soft option.
Just a couple of thought-starters …
1. If TV ads are causing this “childhood obesity epidemic” how come kids are watching (slightly) less TV, with less ‘junk food’ ads, but getting fatter?
2. If TV ads are causing this “childhood obesity epidemic” surely a campaign that says “don’t eat any hamburgers” would reverse the trend.
Or just maybe it isn’t TV ads but a combination of things. Studies at the University of South Australia by Dr. Tim Olds, clearly shows that the ‘energy intake’ of kids today is down on 30 years ago, However, the energy expenditure of kids has decreased by a greater amount. The correlation between the decrease in the energy expenditure and the increase in BMI is clear. Ever thought how much time kids sit on the computer when they should be leading an active life.
So to all those in the Parent’s Jury, show some family leadership and get out into the yard and play some sport or games with your kids to burn up that energy – just like your parents used to do with you 30 years ago when there wasn’t this ‘epidemic’. Or would you rather fire off yet another missive or letter of well-intentioned but factually-challenged complaint that the empirical evidence does not support.
Huzzah to @adgrunt, Nat, Mumstheword…..
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY parents…. Those of you who claim ads make you obese – be a gatekeeper. You signed up to be a parent, so damn well parent!!
And then, maybe, all these alleged afflictions like ADHD can be put down to what they’re really about….. lack of parenting control and responsibility!
Oh junk food made me fat/obese/adhd….. no it’s down to lazy parenting and not saying NO – the true bullseye in any marketing quiver!
I am a parent and yes I get annoyed by my kids pestering me, yes I get tired and find it easier to say yes than fight sometimes.
BUT my kids don’t watch much TV, and most of that is ABC and under supervision (so we discuss marketing tactics which means the ads have less power over the kids), so they don’t see a lot of these ads. And it means they play imaginative games and go to the park.
We sometimes get take away but we tell the kids why we choose x (fish and chips or a real hamburger) over commercial, mass produced rubbish. Our kids know that food should taste good and be good for you – at least one of these criteria must be met so they don’t even want McDonalds themselves! We give them a variety of foods so they have tasted good food and know the plastic stuff for what it is. We talk to them about consequences of unhealthy food (body is weak, you get sick, can’t do all the fun things you want to do, etc).
At 10, my eldest refused to go to McDonalds when offered the chance by her grandparents. Taken to McCafe recently by family, 10 & 13 year olds were quick to point out they only had a muffin – they didn’t want the main menu stuff.
My kids are not perfect and I make parenting mistakes, but my kids don’t eat that stuff NOR DO THEY NAG FOR IT. It is a parenting choice and lifestyle (we mention health and good choices often, not just when McDonalds is mentioned for example).
Let’s face it, McDonalds is a business and out to make money. Their marketing works. If people stop buying their junkier options and only take healthy choices, guess what – McDonalds will stop making the junk. We ahem the power if we choose to use it. Ads aimed at kids is not great but it is reality.