The hamburger salesman and clown is getting an image makeover, as a fitness guru for kids.
LOS ANGELES — Hamburger salesman and clown Ronald McDonald is getting an unlikely image makeover — as a snowboarding, hoops-shooting fitness guru for tots.
The new athletic Ronald, McDonald’s Corp.’s mascot for the last 42 years, will even be sporting a more form-fitting version of his trademark yellow jumpsuit.
In a television commercial that hits airwaves on Friday, an animated Ronald will be seen encouraging kids to get up off the couch and join him in kicking a soccer ball, juggling fruits and vegetables, and riding a skateboard with basketball star and fellow McDonald’s spokesman Yao Ming.
Images of fruits and vegetables abound in the spot, while hamburgers and fries — the foods McDonald’s is known for — are conspicuously absent.
The decision to leave out images of McDonald’s foods was deliberate, an executive said, because the company wants its message to be about all food — not just the food it sells at its 30,000 restaurants across the globe.
“We felt it more appropriate to expand the discussion to all foods at this point,” Jeff Carl, the chain’s corporate vice president of global marketing, said in an interview.
That approach, however, could be misleading, according to one health expert.
“If they are telling kids to eat vegetables, they should have the food to back that up and they should make it attractive and fun and interesting, like the Happy Meals,” said Samantha Heller, a clinical nutritionist and exercise physiologist at New York University Medical Center.
The reincarnated Ronald is part of McDonald’s aggressive effort to deflect widespread media criticism of its food as unhealthy and fattening.
The chain has already revamped some of its children’s Happy Meal offerings by allowing parents to choose milk instead of soft drinks or apple slices with caramel dip instead of fries.
With milk and the Apple Dippers, a hamburger Happy Meal still has about 470 calories and 12 grams of fat. Including the fries and soda, the meal has 600 calories and 20 grams of fat.
In addition to adding new food products, McDonald’s recently began using its advertising and marketing to encourage customers to become more physically active.
As part of that plan, marketing executives realized Ronald McDonald himself had to start walking the walk — literally.
“He’s encouraging children to get up on their feet and start moving,” said Carl. “So if he is going to teach this, Ronald has to start moving himself.”
Reinforcing the idea of balancing calories eaten with an equivalent number of calories burned is at the crux of McDonald’s so-called “balanced lifestyles” campaign.
Both marketing and nutrition experts said McDonald’s was making the right strategic step by using such a recognizable character to promote physical activity at a time when it is being blamed for contributing to the roughly 15 percent of U.S. children and adolescents who are overweight.
“If you give me a role model and you have that role model do things in easy and digestible ways, it’s a very powerful way to make some behavioral changes,” said Nick Hahn, managing director of New York-based marketing consulting firm Vivaldi Partners.
The question is, however, whether consumers will “buy” the message when it comes from a company known for its milkshakes, burgers and apple pies.
“In the case of McDonald’s, I wouldn’t say that what would immediately come to mind is exercise,” Hahn said. “The question is, what will allow them to move into that space and have consumers find that credible. I think that it would be a challenge.”
Meanwhile, Burger King is introducing chicken fries.
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