Quote:
Originally Posted by Jen
So ... if McDonald's stops making toys then ... kids will stop eating hamburgers and fries? Somehow, I doubt that.
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I do think that the toys are the lure. If kids see ads during their cartoons/lame Disney shows (sorry, I am not a bug Disney fan) for "CURRENT HOT MOVIE CHARACTER TOY with your Happy Meal,", they may ask mom to go to McD's. But outside of that, what is the level of the appeal? Would the kids find the food itself so appealing that they would still beg to go to McD's? (Take out the factor of playing in the playground.) That's a rhetorical question, of course.
I'd like to see some statistics if they stopped using toys and/or the "happy meal" and just called it a "kid's size" without all the marketing. Try it out in a few tests markets to see if the Happy Meal and toy is actually bringing kids (their parents) in.
Granted, as a kid, I hated my mom's home-made burgers that plumped up on the broiler, loaded onto a bulkie roll with her meaty home-made fries cut from potatoes. They never stacked up to Wendy's (we never ate at McD's as kids; my mom was a fast-food snob), so I understand the preference and novelty. Then again, when I grew up, we had fast food maybe once every other month, because my mom cooked everything from scratch. We didn't even get a local Burger King until I was in high school (they put it in about 5 miles from the school in the next town during my junior year), thinking it was so cool. Yeah, lame suburban kids in a town that didn't allow chains of any kind flocked to BK as a treat.
It's all very interesting.
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