The Ethics of Marketing to Kids - A Happy Meal Example
"Mommy mommy, I want the minion toy! Can I get a Happy Meal??"
The ethics behind marketing practices that directly advertise fast food to children has been the centre of a showdown for decades between the public and QSR corporations. Virtually all the global chains we've come to know, love, and rue for the destruction of our diets, have been the recipients of increased scrutiny for their continued targeted focus on younger demographics and the methods by which they market to them. One of the most well-known examples of which, remains to be that of McDonalds and its Happy Meal toy strategy.
Since its introduction in 1977, the Happy Meal offering has become a successful staple in McDonald’s menu, with the chain selling over 1.2 billion Happy Meals globally every year. It’s phenomenal success and appeal with children is the reason why the brand dedicates 4% ($32 millions) of its entire global advertising budget just to marketing the Happy Meal and its promotional toys. The accredited driver for the success of the product, is the free toys offered with every deal, which has also made the brand the largest toy distributor in the world. Yet this, is the one of the primary reasons why McDonalds has become the industry face of unethical practices as far as the public is concerned.
The argument laid against McDonalds is that the free toys promoted with ever Happy Meal, apply a series of psychological tactics that incentivise impressionable children to more frequently demand the product, and take advantage of their lack of ability to recognise the persuasive intent of advertising.
With a 2010 lawsuit waged by the Center of Science for Public Interest against McDonalds, E. York noted that the argument made was that McDonalds was utilising toys in its Happy Meal promotions as a means to ‘circumvent parental control and teach children unhealthy eating’ (E. York, 2010). The case instigated that McDonalds was using the allure of their limited time toy collection promotions and the opportunity for every child to get a free toy with every Happy Meal, to entice younger children to make their parents to take them on more frequent visits to the chain. As K. Bratskier notes, the problem with this is that toys are an extremely powerful trigger for impressionable children, that are likely to increase their chances of pestering their parents into making those purchases for them despite having limited to no understanding of the nutritional value of the food served within the Happy Meal (K. Bratskier, 2018).
P. Murphy establishes this as an example of unethical marketing practices as children at the targeted age of the Happy Meal products are withing the proximal stage of neurological development, which makes them more susceptible to the persuasion techniques used in marketing campaigns (Murphy P. 2004). For this reason, the strategy of promoting free toys to encourage children to eat at fast food places is considered an unethical practice.
The second reason behind the Happy Meal marketing strategy behind branded as unethical, is predicated on the long-term impact that its ads have on children and their relationship with food. The premise found is that Happy Meal ads are designed to deliberately make it difficult for kids to distinguish between toys and food, and incentivise kids to make their food based decisions on the prospect of toys (L.O’Reilly, 2015). This presents a problem to parents as it creates a psychological association for children whereby they believe that food must be rewarded with a premium (in this case, toys), making them more prone to want to eat out at QSR chains like McDonalds which offer these to them and thus more challenging to reason with. This marketing tactic is also especially effective because it increases the likelihood of parents having to eat out at McDonalds more often and indirectly increases the returns on every dollar of ad revenue spent for the Happy Meals, happening so much so that 75% of parents end up buying a food item for the first time per their child’s request (FTC, 2012).
The last main reason for the Happy Meal toy program being seen as unethical, is the conflicting messaging that the toys bring with relation to fast food. While Happy Meals are still high in sodium and calories for a child’s daily intake (Heil E., 2019), many of the toys advertised in recent years are positioned as promoters of active lifestyles for children. One example of which was the recalled ‘Step-It’ Counter, which was widely seen to be a crafty marketing gimmick, with no intended effort to promote an active lifestyle. Toys like these are designed to distract parents from the poor nutritional value the Happy Meals offered and mislead children to believe that McDonalds food pairs acceptably with an active lifestyle (Chen A.,2016).
Despite laws placed in several countries against advertising to children, McDonalds has continued to circumvent policies by changing its tactics of promoting its Happy Meal toys, such as in Chile where they started charging only 10 cents for toys when local laws mandated toys couldn’t be used as a free promotional tool for children. McDonalds however, continues to argue that despite government action and public sentiments against their marketing practices, the company only responds to the needs of their customers (Potatopro.com), signalling no belief of any violation of ethical behaviour.
The Philosophical Perspectives
In deontological ethics, a decision can be truly moral only if it is made by an autonomous, rational decision maker (Stanford, 2020). Aside from dictating that morality should be predetermined by whether a resulting action is right or wrong, the theology also advocates for honesty and transparency in the process of decision making.
The Kantian branch of deontology philosophy, in particular, captures this sentiment with the Principle of Reversibility, which states individuals should only do to others as they would expect others to do to them (Computingcases.org). According to this principle, the decision maker, regardless of age, should be able to comprehend the merit of the decision if they were on the receiving end of such a decision.
Under these proponents deontological ethics, using marketing tactics like toys to discretely promote fast food products to children would be considered an ethical violation due to the asymmetry of understanding that exists between McDonalds and its targeted children demographic. As children under the age of eight lack the ability to distinguish commercial content (Dang Q.), and possess limited cognitive capabilities in making decisions, the act of promoting McDonalds products to them with the allure of free toys would be considered unfair manipulation that takes advantage of their lack of awareness of the health implications of fast-food consumption. As taking advantage of a child’s inability to make informed decisions is unfair, this would be seen as deontologically unethical.
Furthermore, McDonald's Happy Meal advertising practices would also be considered under deontological views as unethical because of their misleading association between toys and the consumption of fast food, and lack of communication of the nutritional value of its Happy Meals to children. As the output of this action results in creating unhealthy psychological associations between McDonalds & activeness, as well as the lack of action to improve the level of understanding children have about the nutrition in its meals, these Happy Meal marketing strategies would be also unequivocally seen as unethical under this school of philosophy.
Finally, from the perspective of health, McDonalds would again be in violation of deontological principles of ethical behaviour as their low nutrition, high sodium/calorie products are medically established to cause health-related problems for children in the long-term. Evidence from research shows that high consumption of fast food for children leads to health problems for children like obesity, breathing problems, glucose intolerance, and even high blood pressure as well as psychological problems including body dysmorphia and depression (Dang Q.). Continued promotion of their Happy Meals to uniformed children despite awareness of the health problems an increased consumption of fast-food can lead to, would be considered exploitation under deontology.
Overall, applying the principles of deontology would place Happy Meal promotion as unethical from its inception, due to the well-established short term psychological effects and long term negative health outcomes that are not communicated to the children the product is being marketed at.
Under consequentialism, the debate of the ethicalness of the Happy Meal becomes more challenging. This philosophy uphold that the morality of a decision is determined by its overall outcomes such that decision that yield a net positive return overall would be considered moral or ethical (Strom M).
In this instance, there are several positive yielding benefits as a result of the Happy Meal toy marketing practices. Firstly, the obvious positive consequence of the Happy Meal toys is the excitement it generates for children. The inclusion of toys in Happy Meals enhance the overall eating experience and provide parents with a place where they can guarantee their children’s satisfaction when eating outdoors. Given the longevity of the happy meal program, there is also sufficient evidence indicating that the toys presented to children even decades ago are still a nostalgic part of past pop culture, evidenced by the excessive demand by adults for the throwback toy products released during their childhoods (Berger C., 2022).
Secondly, despite its low nutritional value, McDonalds has taken efforts recently to provide healthier options within its Happy Meals (Dewey C., 2018). The brand has already taken efforts to lower the sodium and caloric content of the food products in the Happy Meal, offer healthy alternatives like apple slices and water instead of the staple fries and soda, and have reduced the size of the soda cup offered with the promotion. These actions are intended to reduce the negative outcomes of that can occur through frequent consumption by children, and thus when looked holistically at the overall impact of the Happy Meals, may contribute to a net positive experience.
Lastly, beyond satisfying its customers and their children, the Happy Meal toy also provides a net benefit to McDonalds’ employees and shareholders. Through his Stakeholder Theory, Edward Freeman states that actions of an organisation should create value for all stakeholders (Stakeholdertheory.org). As the Happy Meal is financially successful, it yields higher returns to the outlets that have them which in turn benefit the employees in respect to their wages, and shareholders and the returns they see on their investments in the Happy Meal promotion.
When these positive outcomes are compared to with the negative outcomes discussed earlier, it presents a challenge of being able to assess whether the perceived net balance of the Happy Meal marketing strategy presents a positive or negative outcome. For this reason, differing viewpoints can be developed on the subject of using toys to market fast food to children. McDonalds can argue that the product yields a net benefit in that it provides satisfaction to children, its employees and the organisation overall whilst health advocates and concerned parents may believe the negative consequences of this marketing practice outweighs any perceived benefits that can be brought.
Ultimately the decision will be left to interpretation given the subjective nature of many elements of analysing the net positive/negative result of certain actions.
The Next Steps - A look at other corporate examples
From what has been observed so far there are several actions McDonalds can take overall to improve its ethical standing in respect to its Happy Meal marketing tactics with children.
In 2007 the Kellogg company, aside from increasing the nutritional value of its children cereal products, also embarked on a journey to change the rhetoric of its advertising campaigns to children to actually educate and promote healthier lifestyles (CBC, 2007). McDonald's needs to revaluate the messaging in its Happy Meal marketing and invest in educational campaigns targeted at children to prove information about balanced diets and the importance of making healthy food choices. These initiatives would make children more informed consumers and enhance their ability to make decisions when deciding to order a Happy Meal, thus reducing some of the unethicalness caused by taking advantage of their lack of awareness.
Secondly, McDonald's needs to ensure transparency in its advertising by making the conveyance of the nutritional value and content of Happy Meals the primary goal on both advertising and packaging. This focus should shift towards the nutritional benefits of the meals rather than solely emphasizing the toys. By doing so, it would better fall in line with the deontological principles of honesty and transparency. If the company fails to do so, it can risk alienating its consumers in the long-term as the public grows more demanding with transparency, as CTV faced in 2022 over its lack of transparency about its television advertising decisions for children’s shows (Leahey, L, 2022).
Thirdly, McDonalds needs to retract the associations its created for children between its products and an active lifestyle. Whilst the brand doesn’t need to remove its in-store play pens, the brand must stop using its name and Happy Meal promotion to endorse active behaviour as this creates an incorrect and confusion association with children. Under this direction, the Public Health Communication Centre of New Zealand advocated that laws be placed to make fast food brands like McDonalds cease their sponsorship and endorsement of children’s sports leagues and competitions to prevent implementing the negative association between McDonalds products and a child’s lifestyle choices (Soupen A., 2016). If McDonalds were to automatically commit to doing so without legal intervention, it would both benefit their brand image and improve their ethical standing in respect to the way their communicate with their impressionable, youth demographic.
McDonalds must be aware of the psychological implications of its promotional mixes catered to their children. Whilst the Happy Meal toy strategy does yield positive benefits to children, there are still several areas where unethical practices need to be addressed in order for the company to improve it standing. However, given the diverse nature of industries, it is advised that every organisation take its own stance when it comes to marketing to children given the nuances of their businesses. (Hadjipani A.). With this in place, McDonalds can develop a more ethical approach in its marketing practices for children.
