OMG. Now kids’re getting lil hummers with their happy meals.
Apparently, McDonald’s is running a “Hummer of a Summer†promotion — with TV ads showing a family riding in a Hummer on the way to a McDonald’s. A nice lil visual microcosm of all that’s wrong with American consumer culture?
Reads the NYT article: “McDonald’s decision to include Hummers in its Happy Meals is surprising given that the fast-food chain has strived in recent years to bolster its image as an environmentally aware company.”
I mean, McDonald’s even has a corporate responsibility blog now. Did the poor dude blogging for McDonald’s get a say on this new hummer happy meal plan?
On the upside, I see interesting new lilliputian video ideas for ihumpedyourhummer…
Update, 9/8/06: RonaldMcHummer lets you create your own subversive McDonald’s sign :) McDonald’s responds to people grossed out by its mini-Hummered happy meals by putting up a post on McDonald’s CSR blog claiming that “the miniature Hummers are just toys, not vehicle recommendations.” Enviroblog responds by pointing out that Hummers’re “not in the business of making kids happy. They are in the business of selling vehicles that pollute the air, waste gas, heat up the atmosphere and send asthmatic kids to the hospital.”
I guess better toys than the real thing.
..,be bold
Comment by Jason — August 10, 2006 @ 2:27 pm
Hybrid car toys I suspect tested poorly on the “cool” factor with children… Choosing the biggest gas guzzling beast in existence sends a poor message IMHO.
Comment by Brotherhood of the Bean — August 10, 2006 @ 2:50 pm
Sigh.
Here’s what Grist had to say about it:
Sometimes a story comes along that so perfectly captures a culture’s pathologies that it should be put in a time capsule, so future generations … oh, right, there won’t be any future generations. It seems that, according to fast-food behemoth McDonald’s, this is a “Hummer of a Summer.” A new series of TV and radio ads depict happy families on their way to fatten their children and clog their arteries at McDonald’s in GM’s gas-guzzling Hummer. When they arrive, soon-to-be-obese boys can choose from eight different toy Hummers with their Happy Meal (happily, girls can learn their proper gender roles from Polly Pocket fashion dolls). Charlie Miller of Environmental Defense thinks it’s kind of a bummer of a summer: “Anything that sends a message to kids that these are the cool vehicles to buy is the wrong message.” At today’s prices, it costs about $96 to fill up the gas tank of a Hummer H2 — but don’t worry, a double cheeseburger’s only a buck.
Comment by Holly — August 10, 2006 @ 3:10 pm
This struck a nerve with me…here’s my response. I’d encourage you to go to mc’d's website and leave some “feedback” as well.
Hello – Just wanted to provide some feedback on your new happy meal program that offers mini-hummers to children. I hardly know what to say. At a time when the national focus is on energy conservation, heat waves potentially due to global warming, a war being fought, on some level, to protect our strategic national interests around oil, why, oh why, would you provide toy gas guzzlers to our children? What Director or VP of Marketing ever thought this was a good idea? How much money did Hummer have to pay you to cloud your judgement. I thought you were trying to change people’s perception of you having a negative impact on the health of our nation’s people and now you link yourself with a product that in many ways epotimizes what is wrong with our culture of consumerism. Well, perhaps this partnership is more brand acretive than I previously thought. Congrats. I won’t be giving you anymore of my business.
My two cents (the last you’ll be getting),
James
Comment by james — August 10, 2006 @ 7:24 pm
Brotherhood — I’m inclined to think that McDonald’s didn’t do any consumer testing for hybrids on kids — From what I remember about being a kid, I was really easily swayed — Tell me hummers are cool, and I may’ve believed ya back in the day when I was eating happy meals –
Good idea on the comment, James. Would love to know if you get a response –
Comment by Siel — August 12, 2006 @ 10:04 pm
WHAT THE F-ING F!!!!!!!
Comment by Damien — August 14, 2006 @ 4:51 pm
See McDonald’s response below…
Hello James:
Thank you for contacting McDonald’s to share your comments about our recent Happy Meal toys. I’m sorry you were disappointed with the theme of this Happy Meal.
You may be interested to know that our Marketing staff reviews several different criteria when designing toys — playability, durability, safety, quality and popularity with children just to name a few. The latter is always a challenge given the number of Happy Meal toys we offer every year. We often offer toys from kids’ favorite television shows, retail toy lines and movie or television characters.
Please know that we would never intentionally upset our customers. Your comments are important and have been shared with our Marketing staff for their review. They’ve assured me they will consider your feedback when planning future Happy Meal offers.
Once again, thank you for letting us know how you feel. We hope you’ll enjoy our future Happy Meal promotions.
Damien
McDonald’s Customer Response Center
Comment by james — August 18, 2006 @ 12:18 am
I was just doing some searching for McDonald’s and alternative energy when I came across your post.
Toy Hummers in Happy Meals: what a stupid, lame-ass promotion. What is wrong with their marketing people? This sends a very wrong message and underminds the efforts of troops fighting in Iraq. Send your men off to die to protect oil, and do nothing to encourage a more reasonable allocation of the resource on our end. Shame on McDonald’s, yet again.
If anyone has any examples of McDonald’s using (or looking into using) alternative energy, please post them over at revenergy.com.
Comment by Sam Stevens — November 2, 2006 @ 5:30 pm