As a little girl growing up in Toronto, it was traditional among my friends and I to have a birthday party at the local McDonald’s restaurant. The visit consisted of a ‘behind the scenes’ tour of the kitchen, play-time in play area and most importantly a visit from the big red-headed man in the yellow suit, Ronald McDonald.
When glancing over this week’s US PR Weekly it came to my attention that there is a huge movement to get rid of this heroic icon from my childhood. An activist group has even been created in support of knocking down the Ronald empire and the campaign has grown with popularity through its presence on Twitter and Facebook. The associated website calls for the retirement of McDonald’s ‘most effective salesman’ and asks supporters to donate, speak-out and sign Ronald’s retirement card. The main argument behind Ronald’s forced retirement is that in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of adolescent diet-related diseases. Understandably, fast-food is not great for one’s health, but have these people never heard of moderation? Are the children taking themselves for a visit to Ronald’s haven? Unless the minimum age for working in the US has decreased without me taking notice, then I highly doubt it is the children who have the choice in what they’re going to eat for dinner, every night! Perhaps the real culprit is a lack of exercise – is the next spokes person to go into forced retirement going to be Mario from the Super Mario Brothers franchise?
The Internet provides the opportunity for people to speak their minds and to change the way that companies run business....it also has provided more work for PR people, how will McDonald’s PR department react to the public slamming of their lead spokesperson? Should the public have a say on the spokes people/characters who are used to promote the product? Should McDonald’s listen to their public and if it does, will the retirement of Ronald the icon cause irreversible damage on the McDonald’s franchise?
Ronald – keep doing what you do - I’m LOVING it!
4 comments:
Hey Katie,
This is a great blog. I had to start one for my program in Oz too and I've just kept it going since.
Also, they're not going to get rid of Ronald. They may have to do some good PR work to calm the public down (if this is even in their minds, cause this is the first I'd heard of this), but he's too iconic and McDonald's will always have kids as one of their main publics. I kind of understood the Joe Camel thing because it's a product specifically for adults, but if kids didn't want McD's they'd lose most of their sales.
The only thing I could see that would make them get rid of a spokesperson like that would be a court order, which I also don't see happening anytime soon.
Wow, that lady in the interview is ridiculous. I can understand her argument but at the end of the day, can you really blame this public icon for the extra ammonia in the burger wrapping or the extra salt in the fries? Does it make any sense to target Ronald when the true responsibility of obesity and unhealthy, imbalanced diets should go to the parents?
I agree with you Katie, everything in moderation and I think it's unfair of the social group to target Ronald and Mcdonalds as opposed to a call to action to parents who are too lazy to prepare healthy meals for their kids on a regular basis.
This lady is full of bullshit for blaming McDonalds for the "confrontation" between parents and kids, for "making it difficult" between them when they have to tell them no. I say, grow the eff up, tell your kid no, and if they sulk and announce they hate you, then you need to take the initiative as the parent to understand that you shouldn't take it personally.
As for highlighting the fact that Mcdonalds may/may not be doing the Ronald Mcdoanld Foundation for selfish/unselfish reasons and is simply the result of good PR work, at the end of the day - if people are being helped by the money the foundation generates, and evreything is legal, who are they to undervalue it?
What are they going to target next - The Ronald McDonald Foundation because it's good PR that targets disadvantaged kids to view McDonalds as a charitable organization?
Poor Ronald Macdonald, he has become a victim of his own success and ended up becoming the target of a PR campaign by Corporate Accountability International, in their bid to reduce the number of overweight children in America! I have to admit that this is a good PR campaign; they have successfully harnessed the brand equity of the icon to drive attention to their cause and get people engaged in discussions.
However from reading your blog and the subsequent comments, they are at risk of alienating the more educated among us, who find the idea that a cartoon man is responsible for the high juvenile obese rates in the USA laughable!
(Unfortunately I couldn't see the video,it is unavailable.)
Katherine - I'm sorry that you were unable to see the video! I doubt that they will be successful in getting rid of Ronald McDonald as well. It is true that obesity is definitely a problem here in North America, however I don't feel that it's fair to say that a cartoon character is the cause of this epidemic!
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