Dec 6 2007

McDonald’s latest advertising venue: report cards

We have this week’s Advertising Age to thank for telling us about McDonald’s new marketing venue: the covers of report cards! And how’s this for an incentive: kids in this school district in Florida who earn all A’s and B’s, have no more than two absences, or (not even and?) exhibit good behavior are entitled to a free happy meal when they present their report card. Next?

Plenty, apparently. See what the New York Times says about all the other food companies that have figured out creative ways to market to school kids.

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  • Dorene
  • December 8, 2007
  • 9:03 pm

McDonald’s did this when I was a kid in the 70s in Pittsburgh — you could get a free hamburger or cheesegburger for every A in your report card.

Heck, when our church youth group took a trip to New England, we all took our report cards with us and scored free hamburgers at every McDonald’s we stopped at — since they didn’t bother to mark your report card once you’d received your free burgers.

  • Fentry
  • December 13, 2007
  • 1:11 am

In the NY Times article, the featured mother who protested worked in advertising herself. That was heartening. This campaign is nothing short of vile. How any educator allowed any company to brand the children’s report cards is beyond me.

Worse, the “sponsorship” only covered the costs of the sponsorship!; McDonald’s only paid the school district for the report-card covers. Why do they need covers at all? Or can’t the kids make some in art class or re-use a folder or binder, etc?

It an exploitative, unnecessary raw-deal–

[...] to Alexandra Lewin for forwarding this link to the Colbert Report on McDonald’s report card gimmick. Interesting production values! « Teaching kids to eat real [...]

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