{"id":35153,"date":"2021-05-08T09:33:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T13:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=35153"},"modified":"2021-05-21T09:08:23","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T13:08:23","slug":"happy-meal-marketing-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Happy Meal Marketing Strategy: Kids as Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is the happy meal marketing strategy? Why are kids so important to the marketing of fast food?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The happy meal marketing strategy is just one way that fast food restaurants market to kids. Kids are their target audience, and fast food restaurants use the happy meal marketing strategy to get people to buy their products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about the happy meal marketing strategy and how fast food restaurants market to kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Happy Meal Marketing Strategy: <strong>A Symbiotic Relationship<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The efforts of fast food chains to market to children extend far beyond conventional ad buys. <strong>The industry works hand-in-glove with toy companies and film studios (with whom they share a target audience) to cross-promote their products<\/strong> across one another\u2019s platforms. The most famous example of this is the Happy Meal, within which McDonald\u2019s packages the hottest children\u2019s toys as a \u201cfree\u201d promotion. This drives further sales of both the Happy Meals and the toys\u2014achieving a perfect synergy between McDonald\u2019s and the toy industry.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Major toy crazes like Pokemon cards, Beanie Babies, Tamogotchis, and Cabbage Patch Kids have all been boosted by synergistic fast food tie-ins. In just 10 days in 1997, McDonald\u2019s sold approximately 100 million Happy Meals thanks to its Teenie Beanie Baby cross-promotion with the toy company Ty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Film studios have also gotten in on the shared cash streams from the fast food giants, forging deals to promote toys and collectibles featuring their movie characters in fast food meals. This has only strengthened the bond between Hollywood and fast food, with top executives frequently moving back and forth between the industries. This symbiotic relationship was epitomized by a historic 1996 global marketing agreement brokered between McDonald\u2019s and Disney, which gives them exclusive rights to cross-promote one another\u2019s products. The two brands, forged by two similar men with a similar <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/vision-for-the-future\/\">vision for the future<\/a> of American <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/capitalism-theory\/\">capitalism<\/a>, were now forever entwined.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Fast Food Nation was published in 2001, so some of the references in the book are a bit out-of-date. In more recent years, McDonald\u2019s has promoted toys from films such as <em>Toy Story 4, Incredibles 2, <\/em>and <em>Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse<\/em>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the happy meal marketing strategy? Why are kids so important to the marketing of fast food? The happy meal marketing strategy is just one way that fast food restaurants market to kids. Kids are their target audience, and fast food restaurants use the happy meal marketing strategy to get people to buy their products. Read more about the happy meal marketing strategy and how fast food restaurants market to kids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,104,24],"tags":[287],"class_list":["post-35153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-marketing","category-society","tag-fast-food-nation","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Happy Meal Marketing Strategy: Kids as Customers - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The happy meal marketing strategy is part of McDonald&#039;s overall strategy to appeal to kids and build a loyal customer base. Read more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Happy Meal Marketing Strategy: Kids as Customers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The happy meal marketing strategy is part of McDonald&#039;s overall strategy to appeal to kids and build a loyal customer base. Read more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-08T13:33:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-05-21T13:08:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/mcdonalds-m-golden-arches-fast-food.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"533\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"The Happy Meal Marketing Strategy: Kids as Customers\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-08T13:33:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-21T13:08:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/\"},\"wordCount\":367,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/mcdonalds-m-golden-arches-fast-food.jpeg\",\"keywords\":[\"Fast Food Nation\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Health\",\"Marketing\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/\",\"name\":\"The Happy Meal Marketing Strategy: Kids as Customers - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/happy-meal-marketing-strategy\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/mcdonalds-m-golden-arches-fast-food.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-08T13:33:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-21T13:08:23+00:00\",\"description\":\"The happy meal marketing strategy is part of McDonald's overall strategy to appeal to kids and build a loyal customer base. 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