According to RonaldMcHummer.com, McDonald’s has given away 42 million Hummer toys as part of their most recent Happy Meal promotion. Not surprisingly, a number of individuals who view the Hummer as a symbol of rampant eco-destruction have made a shrill outcry. Some parents may find the choice of toy to be upsetting as this isn’t a suitable toy for a child to be playing with. Alternatively, parents could opt for a healthier meal elsewhere before going home and playing with their child helped by watching a nursery ryhme on youtube. This would be an educational play time compared to your child playing with a grease stained hummer.
Now, from a marketing and customer interaction perspective, the interesting bit about this brouhaha is not the outcry itself, but rather the McDonald’s response. Bob Langert, Vice President for Corporate Citizenship and Issues Management at McDonald’s, has put forth an interesting bit of NewSpeak on the McDonald’s Corporate Social Responsibility blog, regarding the promotion. Langert states:
“Our company, including my staff, is deeply committed to the whole scope of corporate responsibility issues, including environmental protection. So I polled my staff who have or had children. One of them said her children enjoy the little Hummer replicas as toys, just as many kids like toy trucks, regardless of make or model. She drives a MiniCooper, walks with her children to get groceries, bicycles with them on weekends, etc. Another said her grandchildren absolutely love the toy Hummers–that they’re fun.
Of course, there’s nothing scientific about this poll, but I think it makes an important point. Looked at through children’s eyes, the miniature Hummers are just toys, not vehicle recommendations or a source of consumer messages about natural resource conservation, greenhouse gas emissions, etc.”
Bob, you dropped the ball here. Big time. There are about a dozen comments on your blog on the matter, none of which you’ve addressed directly. You’ve given a pat, Teflon-coated response to an issue that is of concern to many of your customers. In fact, the response you’ve given isn’t even a response — it’s a mis-direction and a diversion.
Without stepping up and giving a real answer and providing some real direction, you are doing nothing more than using a new medium (blogs) to reinforce the negative perceptions that already exist about your organization. In fact, you are solidifying those perceptions further.
(Thanks to Jay Rosen for the tip.)
Others in the conversation:
http://www.emergencemarketing.com/archives/2006/09/more_people_unhappy_with.php
http://funnybusiness.typepad.com/funnybusiness/2006/09/mcdonalds_vice_.html
http://www.enviroblog.org/2006/09/mcdonalds_responds_to_hummer_p.htm
http://cityhippy.blogspot.com/2006/09/news-mchummer-ok-say-mcdonalds.html
http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/mcdonalds-responds-to-the-happ-002240.php
http://customerevangelists.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/mcdonalds_blog_.html
My non-scientific response is to agree with him, but my opinion of McDonalds has nowhere to go but up. I think a toy car no matter what the brand is no better or worse than a cheap plasic representation of a cartoon copyright.
McDonalds can safely ignore this “uproar” and it will go away. Their market and the people with the time and inclination to be shrill conservationists are likely to have very little overlap.
Rob, I agree with two of your core points (“McDonalds has nowhere to go but up” and “Their market and the people with the time and inclination to be shrill conservationists are likely to have very little overlap.”) But if McD’s wants to, somehow, eventually connect with the groups that currently defile them, they’ll need to actually start addressing these issues.
Come to think of it…42 MILLION little plastic toys. That’s a lot of stuff, regardless of form.
I don’t see why they will ever need to. When they need an honest-looking brand to attract those customers they will simply buy and sell an existing franchise like they did with Chipotle Grill while ignoring everything but the core merits “cheap, fast, consistent” of their golden arches core. I can’t see how that will fail to work in the next fifteen years.
Chris:
Unscientifically, my gut reaction is that this campaign is rather savvy of McDs. They know they can’t please everyone. They’ve already lost the environmental/organic crowd thanks to Morgan Spurlock et al.
So they return to their core – just as people like me and you tell them to.
McDs knows its customers – high percentage of families where Dad has Hummer-envy and Mom/Dad don’t really care about what they feed their kids. Same demographic as the clientele of their biggest partner – Disney. Have you been to Disney World lately?
Other Marketers play to their clientele, why shouldn’t McDs? Consider campaigns from Harley Davidson, Revlon or HBO (I’m thinking about “Entourage”).
Adam, I hear what you’re saying (and Rob, too, about the “15 year” timeframe). I can’t help but to think that if they stay on this path, however, it’s a “tragedy of the commons” type of situation…where the “commons” in this case is, unfortunately, the group of folks who live the Spurlock lifestyle, 24×7…
Was that “hey look a pony” comment inspired by Lisa Simpson in “A Class Struggle in Springfield.”
Lisa is angered when sees Kent Brockman’s daughter berate a waiter for bringing her a baloney sandwich. (The little snob insists she asked for “abalone.”) But as soon as Lisa sees a man riding a pony her social indignation evaporates. Moments later, riding that same pony, Lisa shouts to her mother “Look Mom, I found something more fun than complaining.”
hi, laurence…it may have been, indirectly. a core group of colleagues have been using “hey look…a pony!” as the default example of a distraction technique whenever a conversation starts to go awry, but not sure of the initial source for the phrase. (it just seems to work!) felt that langert was doing the same thing with his (non)-answer. hope you’re well!
Unscientifically, my gut reaction is that this campaign is rather savvy of McDs. They know they can’t please everyone. They’ve already lost the environmental/organic crowd thanks to Morgan Spurlock et al.
So they return to their core – just as people like me and you tell them to.
I can’t see how that will fail to work in the next fifteen years.
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