The company also pushes the line that it’s products are generally healthy, but do not create a balanced diet.
This is all well and good, and I imagine most of us would agree with the comments quoted from nutritionists in the campaign, but why are McDonald’s promoting this line? Will anybody really be convinced that the company has the public’s welfare in mind? Could this be the start of a trend in more honest advertising? Would it work outside France?
I’m admittedly cynical about this, and I see it as just another marketing ploy (‘we’re honest and we care, so you can trust whatever else we say’). On the other hand, I’d be amazed if the public as a whole swallowed this campaign.
It sounds like valid enough advice to me: eat at McD’s twice a week (while eating healthier food the rest of time) and you’ll probably live a reasonably long time. Eat at McD’s every day, and you could easily be dead by 55 with a heart attack or whatnot and unable to continue buying their products.
So they promote themselves as a nice treat, a reward food, an occasional bit of convenient comfort. What’s your damage?
Of course, if you absolutely MUST see corporate evil, look at their recently-applied no-smoking policy (in Canada, anyway). Sure, it’s to keep the restaurant air reasonably healthy and comfortable, but it’s also to keep people from lingering for 7+ minutes over a smoke after they polish off the McNuggets. Gotta keep the crowds moving, get 'em in, get 'em out, go go go!
[sarcasm] How dare those bastards do this to us! Can’t the government do something?! [/sarcasm]
I suppose so. I didn’t really think of the ‘long term customer’ planning; I just don’t think of McD’s in that way (more as a convenience food when I happen to pass one).
Given that advertisers usually shy away from any connotation that their product might have a negative impact, isn’t it still a risky move for them?
McDonalds has been doing some rather different things lately. They’ve forced all of their egg suppliers to comply with stricter, more humane standards in their egg processing facilities. The chickens are given more room, and don’t have their beaks cut off. Anyone know what’s up? Why the change in philosophy?
Metamucil: “Yes! I want to go to the bathroom!”
AT&T: “What are you gonna do, we’re all you’ve got.”
Jaguar: “For people who want hand jobs from women they don’t even know.”
Anyways, I imagine that McD’s in France is doing this to head off a push by the French government to further regulate the industry. Fast food in this country is taking the opposite approach. See websites like www.consumerfreedom.com for the counterattack underway by the food industry. Any way you play it, government regulation of the fast food industry is advancing and sin taxes on “unhealthy” foods are over the horizon. If a little self-regulation and reasonable assessment of their own product is what it takes to convince the government to back off, then it’s a good plan. If I were them, I’d fight with everything I had, but sometimes the cautious path is the best. Of course, sometimes a plan like this could backfire by tilting public opinion even further against you. It’s a gamble either way, I suppose.
I haven’t looked at this particular issue but I’d bet that this is a preimptive(SP?) strike on Micky D’s part. In the US there are people trying to force taxes on fast food because it ‘causes people to be overweight’ which, according to their numbers, costs the tax payers money in the form of health care costs.
The health Nazis (as I call them) are targeting anything that they believe is unhealthy and working on taxing or suing companies that they think are to blame for peoples health problems. They got the tobacco companies for a couple of billion even though it was well known that smoking was a bad thing. The health Nazis claimed that the average smoker did not know that smoking was a bad thing to do. It was well known that smoking was a bad thing for a long time. The tobacco companies screwed up by trying to hide the fact. If they said ‘Yeah, it’s not the best thing to do but our customers kept using the product anyway’ they would have faired better.
Lately I have read many articles from the health Nazis about how fast food joints should be taxed at a higher level.
The thing that really gets me is that these people are trying to control other peoples life styles using the government. They seem to think that they should control what I eat, drink and smoke.
Or maybe McDonald’s is starting to figure out that people don’t want guilt with their fries.
The author of “Fast Food Nation” suggests that the most effective way to get McDonald’s and others in the industry to act responsible and demand responsibility from their suppliers is for customers to demand that of them.
I doubt you’ll see similar campaigns to the French advertisements in the United States anytime soon, however. The French are a little more demanding about their food than Americans, and McDonald’s probably sees this as its best bet to sell hambugers to health-conscious people; tell them ‘OK. This ain’t really good for you, but it’s OK once in a while.’
I remember commercials with the head chef guy who invented that awful awful burger (that i had to get an adult to buy, for smurf’s sake!). I can only hope he is flipping burgers at the corner McD’s now, and they got a competent head chef.
As for the OP, i think this will stave off the Health Nazis for a while, and when they do attack, more people will give them the ridicule they deserve. You see, there is this concept called “personal responsibility” that they seem to have never heard of.
As for the OP, I believe that McDonalds has been steadily selling less and less burgers, and they’re playing every card in their hand in order to “win back” the love of the public.
Especially in France, and the whole of Europe, who were hit so hard by Mad Cow/BSE disaster, I’m sure beef sales just plummeted. Parallel to that, I’m sure fast food sales (maybe not chicken, though) also plummeted.
So, McDonalds is doing everything it can to increase their massivly depleted customer base. So, their short-term strategy is the “I care about you” angle. The long-term angle (the math for which was probably supplied by a company statistician) is that that if all of your customers have heart attacks at age 40 and give up fast food, that means the company will have problems down the road. Especially in Europe, where the bith rate is down and the population’s average age is getting older and older.
A strange tactic, yes. But I’m sure they spent quite the fistful of euros to made sure it would be a profitable tactic.
[off topic] For everyone out there flinging around the term “Health Nazi,” don’t you think that’s a little rude? These people who are concerned about health are just doing their best to make the world a little better place for their children to grow up. They want to educate people. To do their part to fight ignorance.
Also, isn’t there some internet message board “law” or “rule” that says when you bring up Nazis, you automatically forfeit your points and argument? Shouldn’t that apply here, as well? Just curious. [/off topic]
No argument here about staying away. They recently got rid of the only menu item I’ll touch outside of morning hours. And it was a salad! THAT was a warning need long ago. But still we persist, despite muliple unheeded warnings to kill ourselves with that which we enjoy most.
one word: ** MODERATION **
[off topic hyjack reply] The Food Natzi element out there is actually pretty vile when you think of the things we should avoid at thier warnings. If we DID everything they suggested, we’f be living really long lives, but just what is the payoff if it’s a rather bland and boring life? Tell me is your Theatre popcorn as good as it once was?
No less compempt belongs to the legislators out there who believe that thier monetary shortfalls should be covered at the expence of a small number of citizens. ( can you tell Ohio has a new Ciggarette tax to ballance the state budjet @ $.35 per pack)
Keep your nose ** OUT** of my life unless you plan on giving me the healthcare, for which I have paid Phillip Morris many times. I’ll give your warnings a listen, but come too much, and you lose that which you have striven so hard for. We can only listen to the "Concerned’ for so long before they start sounding like a bunch of ** WOLF ** criers [/off topic hyjack reply]
I understand that a couple of Scandinavian countries have actually outlawed advertising junk food to children (during kiddie programs, etc.) and that Great Britain is considering the same move. So this may be the French McDonald’s way of staving off that day.
If they just wanted to educate people, that would be all right.
But they don’t just want to educate people.
They want to pass laws.
They do not merely say, “Fast food is bad for you, so don’t eat it.” They don’t even say “Fast food is bad for you, so let’s boycott McDonalds.” No. They say, “Fast food is bad for you, so let’s sue McDonalds or tax fast food or legislate limits to how much fat can be in the food you eat. For your own good, of course.”
The change has been coming for the last year and a half or so. Do you remember the PETA shirts/stickers/patches that said “McMurder” in McDonalds font? Well I guess McDonalds was getting pretty scared, because PETA was very well informed (and truthful), which was enough to disgust a good many people. Anyways, PETA put a moratorium on their boycott of McDonalds when McDonalds agreed to take certain steps towards ensuring that their meat is cruelty free. Egg hatcheries are notoriously disgusting. Worse than veal, many activists say. Beaks are seared off b/c of the extreme concentration of hens (and the consequent propensity towards violence). Hens are usually 5 to a space about the size of a 8.5 X 11 piece of paper. Their excrement is scraped off the floor and fed to them with grain (and cows sometimes I think- Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating). I’ve read a lot about it, it is disturbing!
So I’d be willing to wager that moving to more humane egg hatcheries was part of the PETA agreement.
My opinion as an animal rights activist and vegan:
I’m glad McDonalds is doing this. It will be alleviating
a lot of pain and suffering. BUT…I still see McDonald’s number one interest as money, and all policies such as these are for the appeasment of the public (and sometimes, left wing radicals) in order to make money.
I don’t think they have become bleeding hearts here. And I don’t think they will ever reach the point (because of need for high production=factory farms=suffering) of being “in the right” on the animal rights issue. But, you know, good things sometimes stem from wrong reasons. (example: the 1964? Equal Rights Act was in the process of being passed in the Legislature, and some conservatives decided to tack “gender” onto the bill as being covered in the same way that race would be covered, in hopes of getting the bill defeated. They thought that even liberals wouldn’t want to pass the bill if women were included too. They were wrong, and women (and minorities) got a lot more liberty than they had ever had in America.
history can be weird.
colin
p.s. see “Bob Roberts” if you haven’t yet. Deviously brilliant!