Lucas Todek
Eng-131H
San Antonio
22 September 2014
Short Slaves to Promotion
Fast food industries have depended on children for generations. Children bring in such a huge profit margin that fast food executives even have scientists figuring out the best way to attract more. These sly companies use commercials and various other promotions to convince children to drag their parents in tow. Kids can not afford the products being promoted so the food industry relies on persuading the child to persuade the adult who can afford the product.
One way they attract children is through the use of mascots. Ronald McDonald was modeled after Bozo the Clown. Most children kids enjoy clowns and consider them friendly. This was an incredibly intelligent move on McDonalds Corporation. They create commercials of him playing with children which gives the child a sense of comradery associated with Ronald. By doing this, kids have then confused their sense of friendliness to an imaginary character to a multi-billion dollar corp. Ronald was so successful that he even surpassed Mickey Mouse as the most widely recognized fictional character in the world. They didn’t stop with just the clown either; they created a whole team of friendly characters in a television show used to promote the restaurant. The show fell in popularity so only Ronald remains to this day.
Sometimes having a friendly face isn’t enough. Your salty, fat and sugary drink now comes with a free toy! Another brilliant move brought in droves of children. Now that they could get a tasty meal and a McDonalds gave out free hot wheels cars with every happy meal purchase. They even created gender specific toys so that the whole community would be targeted instead of just boy or girl. Other companies began to catch on quickly. Cereal companies such as General Mills, Post and Kellogg’s began putting toys in their sugared cereal to promote buying the food.
In addition to the toys, the Play Place followed soon after. The...