April 14th, 2010

More Healthy Advertising Campaigns Needed for MacDonald’s?!

McDonald’s has recently taken up a lot of space at Customs House at Circular Quay in Sydney. The playground is part of the new McDonald’s campaign ‘inner child’. The massive structure is set to impress office workers and tourists with a dazzling world of slides that twist, turn and dip into a colourful ball pit. Playful tunnels that wind and loop across a 20 metre area and the fun of an adult-size aeroplane, helicopter and giant bus bring fun back to adults living and working in the city. This is what McDonald’s is trying to do, get people to release their inner child.

Helen Farquhar, McDonald’s director of marketing, said, “Adult life carries many restrictions so we want to remind people that McDonald’s is still a place were you can have fun, be yourself and not be judged. A place where you feel like a kid again.”

“This adult-sized Playland allows us to forget about the deadlines, budgets and stresses of life and just revel in this incredible childhood arcadia. And the best part is the McDonald’s characters we loved as kids are back old school style giving us the opportunity to reclaim our childhood, to look at the world through younger eyes again and just lose ourselves – if only for a minute”

See below a video of the earlier inner child campaign from McDonald’s:

Besides that you can see the newly released family packages on the side of every major road these days. McDonald’s finally moved into the family meal deal market releasing the dinner pack for $19.95 last month. The question lingers whether this is a good thing as the meals include only the original McDonald’s meals like burgers, fries and sugary soft drinks.

Well, I think the combination of working people sitting behind their desk all day and eating McDonald’s is not a really healthy combination is it?!

Maybe it’s a good thing if McDonald’s ends up working together with Weight Watchers in Australia just like they do in New Zealand. McDonald’s and Weight Watchers may say it’s not intended as a marketing tool and working together is just to improve health of Australians at large, but the question is – will this happen if there is still the unhealthy food for less?

Image by Hanneke Wetzer

Communications