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Happy Meal Ban: McDonald's Outsmarts San Francisco
- veyron 15y agoI'm confused -- do kids actually clamor specifically for the McDonald's toys? Aren't there better and cheaper toys out there?
- bkudria 15y agoKids.
- TomOfTTB 15y agoThe last numbers I know of are from 2003 but in 2003 Happy Meals accounted for about 20% of McDonalds Sales (Link found through Quick Google Search: http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2004/09/03/the-stealth-toy-giant.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2004/09/03/the-steal...) Apparently they distributed over 1.5 Billion toys in 2009 (Lftqgs: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1460556/mcdonalds_gives_away_over_15_billion.html http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1460556/mcdonalds_g...) So I'd say yes
- byoung2 15y agoI was in McDonald's a few weeks ago and heard a parent say "we've been to 3 locations looking for this toy!" Apparently some kids want them bad enough to force their parents to go to extremes to get them.
- rexf 15y agoReminds me of Beanie Babies in the late 90's
- veyron 15y agoMcD made a boatload from a teeny beanie babies promotion: "Estimates suggest that McDonald's made $250 million of sales on Teenie Beanie Baby Happy Meals during this promotion." Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1460556/mcdonalds_gives_away_over_15_billion_pg2.html?cat=3 http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1460556/mcdonalds_g...
- kstenerud 15y agoWhat ever happened to "no"?
- ams6110 15y agoMaybe the kid brought home an all "A" report card and the parent wanted to do something nice. Or not. Probably not. But I've been known to reward my kids with something they want if they have done something deserving a reward.
- veyron 15y ago"I've been known to reward my kids with something they want" <-- if your kids asked you specifically for a mcdonalds toy, would you oblige?
- joelhooks 15y agoMy first two kids did. We stopped feeding them fast food and it stopped. The younger two clamor for carrot sticks ;)
- moe 15y agoKids are a delicious target audience. The churn-rate is largely irrelevant because there's infinite supply of new little idiots.
- aMoniker 15y agos/Kids/Humans
- colanderman 15y ago"Aren't there better and cheaper toys out there?" I'm gonna guess you haven't spent much time around kids ;) How much a kid wants a toy is directly proportional both to how well it is marketed, and to how much their peers want it (which, since their "peers" appear in ads for the products, is really just a proxy for how well it's marketed). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogs#Popularity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogs#Popularity and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beanie_babies#Marketing_strategies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beanie_babies#Marketing_strateg...
- veyron 15y agoHow does Lego do marketing? I don't think I or my parents have ever seen a Lego ad in my life, yet I played with legos as a little kid and I still play with Legos :)
- true_religion 15y agoLego seems to have plenty of ads at least in my area. If you watch kid's cartoons in the 5-9 age bracket you'll see a lot of their ads for special packs like Lego Space Adventure, etc.
- tikhonj 15y agoApart from whatever official marketing they do, they're also simply a very well-known and well-regarded brand. Even the word "Lego" is basically synonymous with the whole market segment they're in. Finally, Lego sets are just addictive (as I remember well from my childhood). I think I got my first one by accident--it was a tiny $3 (or something) set because the matchbox cars I liked back then weren't available. This was years ago so the details are fuzzy, but I still remember which set it was :) After that I was completely enthralled by Lego and continued getting more and more for years. Ultimately, the only reason I stopped playing with them was because I got even more addicted to programming. That alone must supplement their conventional marketing by a large amount.
- protomyth 15y agoAbsolutely right, ask anyone who was a kid during the initial (79 + 80s) Star Wars toy craze who went from store to store chasing the Jawa figure. Or you can ask my Dad and he will have a long critique of the situation. Only time I ever heard my Dad utter MFer was after months of looking for the Jawa, which only one kid in the neighborhood had, we turned the corner at a K-Mart and found a whole isle of them.
- driverdan 15y agoKudos to McDonald's for circumventing a stupid law. The government needs to stop meddling in everyone's life.
- TomOfTTB 15y agoI don't disagree but I think the larger point here is Government is painfully ineffective at meddling. So much so that they end up making the problem they were trying to prevent worse. I mean, this was a pretty obvious work around for McDonalds. If the SF City Council was serious about this they should have seen it coming from a mile away.
- romanows 15y agoCould it be that MacDo just called the SF city council's bluff? I'm not sure this is evidence that the city council sucks at intervening: the council did something straightforward to communicate their intent. The company brazenly thumbed its nose, so they must believe the council to be utterly weak-willed or powerless. If the city council is not bluffing, they'll push for more restrictive laws. And in another time and place, perhaps health, safety, and zoning commissions would come knocking.
- NiceOneBrah 15y agoHopefully an equally (it not more) stupid follow up by the city council would be shot down when coming to a vote. Perhaps McDonald's is banking that lightning won't strike twice?
- Herring 15y agoHave you seen the rising obesity statistics? If the government doesn't take it on as a public health issue, who will? http://www.wikinvest.com/images/3/37/Obesity.jpg http://www.wikinvest.com/images/3/37/Obesity.jpg
- yummyfajitas 15y agoObesity is a private health issue. It is not communicable and poses no danger to anyone except the people who freely choose to eat too much. The only reason obesity becomes a public issue at all is because the non-obese are forced by the government to pay for the health care of the obese. This problem has a very simple solution - no medicare/medicaid for fatties, and make it easier for insurance to charge fatties and fitness freaks different rates.
- staunch 15y agoThe law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head yet again.
- bstrand 15y agoOnly an unintended consequence if you accept the article's premise that a non-trivial number people actually went to McD's and only bought the toy, and those people will continue to go for the toy but buy the happy meal to get it. And feed it to their kid. Seems dubious to me.
- city41 15y agoBut McDonald's is still selling happy meals with toys in them in San Francisco. They are just selling them for ten cents more now. So the law is effectively moot.
- marknutter 15y agoIt seems that the unintended consequence here is that the Ronald McDonald house is getting more donations than it used to. It not accomplishing the goal the law set out to accomplish certainly wasn't intended, but it wasn't an "unintended consequence" in the traditional sense.
- raganwald 15y agoScofflaws deliberately seeking loopholes are not "unintended consequence." nwnted consequences, perhaps, but not unintended consequences. An unintended consequence of a ban on toys with meals might be something bizzare like a rise in minivan accidents because kids full of caffiene and sugar have nothing to play with in the car and bug their parents while they're driving home from lnch.
- mindstab 15y agoHow? This sounds like a hilarious legal hack but the details were never revealed.
- zizee 15y agoThe article was quite clear. You have to donate 10c to charity (Ronald McDonald House) for the toy, instead of getting it for free. But you can only dontate if you get a happy meal. Also, apparently you used to be able to buy the toys separately, which is no longer an option.
- mindstab 15y agoAh thanks
- callmeed 15y agoThis story and the comments here are quite interesting and I'm really torn on this. On one hand, I think the government does have a job to intervene when negative externalities affect society (like obesity has). On the other hand, as this story demonstrates, they clearly suck at intervening. On a personal level, I don't care what McDonalds does because I don't take my kids there (I have 3 kids under 7). But I care about obesity being a drain on society and a healthcare issue we all have to share. McDonalds, well, they care about profits.
- Retric 15y agoNothing stops the government from simply changing the law to fix such loopholes. So, it's actually safer to craft something vary specific and deal with attempts to get around the intent than craft something really generic. AKA, no store which generates 95+% of it's revenue from food may sell, give away, or market Toys. would probably have worse downsides than simply creating an ineffective law.
- morrow 15y agoI wonder if there is some political philosophy to describe my thoughts on this - but I never understood why government just didn't set up taxes on things it didn't like, and directly allocate the revenues from those taxes to the opposite side of whatever stance it took (versus going towards general expenses). For example with this, tax the happy meal and other fatty kids foods, allocate revenues earned from that tax directly to childhood obesity prevention campaigns. McDonald's still makes money, kids still can get happy meals, and childhood obesity is reduced through funding effective programs.
- protomyth 15y agoThey tried this with the tobacco taxes / settlements and just decided to spend it any way they wanted.
- kalmi10 15y agoIn Hungary they are taxing too fatty, too sweet and too salty foods. Oh.. and drinks with high coffeine content. http://www.chew.hu/welcome_to_the_maybe_healthy_a.html http://www.chew.hu/welcome_to_the_maybe_healthy_a.html Some foods' salty version costing twice as much as the non-salty version (for example peanuts). I can't say we like it...
- bstrand 15y agoSan Francisco should respond by imposing a 10000% tax on the sale of toys from food service establishments.
- NiceOneBrah 15y agoOr by ceasing to make stupid laws.
- geoffschmidt 15y agoIt seems like it would be easy to redraft the law to close the loophole. I mean, I can't just walk in and donate $.10 and get a toy. They have gone from bundling a toy with the happy meal, to bundling an option to purchase a toy.
- refurb 15y agoIt's tough to legislate against every possible loophole in a law.
- tokenadult 15y agoMy class on legislation in the first year of law school (which was quite innovative, as at that time most law schools didn't require a course in legislation at all) was taught by one of the legal scholars who literally wrote the book on the subject. http://store.westlaw.com/eskridge-frickey-garretts-legislation-statutory-interpretation-2d-concepts-insights-series/133287/40449808/productdetail http://store.westlaw.com/eskridge-frickey-garretts-legislati... Almost everyone, "conservative" or "liberal," who took that course began the semester supposing that passing a new law is an effective way to solve a social problem. By the end of the semester, hardly any of us thought that anymore.
- refurb 15y agoAgreed. I work in the health care industry and it's amazing how gov't regulation (well intentioned as it may be) creates incredibly perverse incentives. If you want to read up on this type of thing, just read how ASP (average sale price) reimbursement for Medicare drugs works. Doctors and drug wholesalers make money hand-over-fist because of the system. Capitalism creates wealth by matching buyer and seller. If kids want happy meal toys (thus parents want them too) they'll get them one way or another, regulations be dammed.
- 8ig8 15y agoWhen debating issues like this in my mind, I frequently flip-flop. I can argue both sides. On one side, I don't want a corporation taking advantage of the consumer by using immense resources to exploit a flaw in human behavior. On the other hand, I don't want the government deciding what is right and wrong for me. In doing so, the government draws an arbitrary line and uses it to promote and also defend its actions, ultimately limiting my rights. This whole Happy Meal debate would be a non-issue if consumers didn't want Happy Meals. It turns out they do, so work-arounds work just like prohibition did not eliminate alcohol from our culture. The government is elected to serve and represent the people. The people want Happy Meals (and alcohol) (and drugs sourced from Mexico).