One of Kid 2’s favorite restaurants is McDonald’s Fortunately, he has broadened his dietary horizons lately, but not before we spent a lot of time eating under the golden arches.
I’ve noticed something happening at McDonald’s over the last several months. I think that fast food giant is gradually bringing back the McDonaldland characters. Work with me here…
For those of you unfamiliar with the McDonaldland characters, this article offers a great summary of their rise and abrupt fall from grace. Go ahead and check it out. And then I’ll fast forward to this past summer in the next paragraph.
From June 4 till July 9 of this year, US McDonald’s restaurants offered a berry flavored milkshake called The Grimace Milkshake. The promotion was to celebrate the 52nd anniversary of the McDonaldland character, Grimace.
This past fall, I personally started seeing McDonald’s billboards popping up throughout my local metropolitan area, featuring the Hamburgular character with the slogan “Hamburgular Worthy”.
While watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this past Thursday, I saw a balloon for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. The balloon was of the Ronald McDonald character himself. Yes, I realize that the Ronald McDonald House is a separate entity from the McDonald’s fast food chain. Nevertheless, they use the McDonald’s name and a giant facsimile of the same clown on national TV.
The truth is that the Ronald McDonald character didn’t really disappear for very long, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re seeing he and his costars gradually return. Contrasting with the way the Cleveland Indians gradually phased out the Chief Wahoo mascot culminating in the team eventually rebranding itself as the Cleveland Guardians; I think the fast food juggernaut is gradually reintroducing one of its most popular marketing gimmicks.
Let’s face it: the Ronald McDonald characters were an extremely successful marketing campaign for McDonald’s over the course of several decades.
The 2004 documentary Super Size Me talks about this in some detail. it is explained to documentarian Morgan Spurlock that kids associate good times – and good feelings – with McDonald’s. They had the colorful, fun characters in their commercials; most of which were geared specifically toward children. Holding birthday parties at McDonald’s was popular for many years. I specifically remember having my fifth birthday party at a McDonald’s restaurant. And everybody knows that McDonald’s happy meals had the best toys of any fast food restaurant’s kids meal.
While Supersize Me didn’t single-handedly force McDonald’s to overhaul their entire marketing campaign, the film made an impact. It came along at a time when portion, sizes, fast food, restaurants, and obesity were going to collide head on with fitness, nutrition and awareness. Take a look at the typical McDonald’s lobby of the early 1980s, and what same space looks like today.
It was the viral clown sightings in 2016 that put Ronald McDonald on ice indefinitely. It’s looking more like McDonald’s has decided it’s time to try again; not only with Ronald McDonald, but with the entire McDonaldland gang. It will be interesting to see if McDonald’s shift back to marketing themselves to kids, as they did for decades.
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The article “Return of the Clown” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob
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