I’ve previously blogged quite a bit on fast food marketing when it was hot some months back – but this is completely crazy: McDonald’s has resorted to advertising on elementary school children’s report card! What’s more, the brand has even positioned itself as a reward or prize by offering a free Happy Meal to students who has all A’s and B’s, has no bad marks in behaviour or hasn’t been absent from school for more than 2 days.
The brand has maintained that it only seeks to promote good nutrition and making good eating choices. While the focus has mostly been on McDonald’s, not many people are questioning the school’s authorities who approved this exercise - who couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. After all, no one seemed to fuss when Johnson Banks got school kids to develop fonts for an advertising campaign for Save The Children in the UK - which to me is like Nike getting the sweat shop kids to smile and say “thank you for my job” in a TVC.
