Competition

Fast food Marketing

is very effective. 96% of American school children can identify Ronald McDonald, 2nd only to Santa Claus. The "golden arches" have become a more recognizable symbol than the Christian cross.

Americans now spend more money on fast food than they do on higher education, personal computers, software or new cars.

Only a generation ago 3/4 of meals consumed in America were made at home. Most meals that Americans eat today are prepared outside the home, mainly at fast-food restaurants.

The fast food industry spends $4 billion a year in advertising. Their primary targets for these ads are children and "heavy users" 18-24 year olds, primarily men, who eat fast food 4 or more times a week.

Children are targeted through alliances with popular companies, such as popular channels or cartoons and sports. Disney has connections to both McDonalds and Burger King. Fast food products are written in to Disney movies (such as George of the Jungle eating a Big Mac) and toys and promotional products are distributed in the children's meals at fast food restaurants. The primary target for these campaigns is 2-7 year old children. Alliances such as these are also designed to promote a sense of McDonalds being the consumers "trusted friend" an association often made with companies such as Disney.

Because of the success of these marketing techniques parents feel that they need to take their children to McDonalds in order to be good parents that children would love. "Purchasing something from Disney is the ultimate way to make kids happy, but it is too expensive to do on a daily basis...only McDonalds makes it easy to get a bit of Disney magic"

McDonalds has also used its brand for popular children's toys. There are McDonalds themed Barbies, video games, even theme parks. Barbie also has a Pizza hut play set.

Heavy users (18-24 year old males that eat fast food about 4+ times a week) are targeted with sexual ads (Carl's Junior is famous for this ie Paris Hilton ad pictured), del Taco did violent ads and Jack in the Box did ironic ads featuring Jack that were all very popular with this demographic.

For this demographic the convenience is a major selling point. This is due to the faster pace of the modern world. Especially for students, driving to work or school in a hurry. Drive thru fast food seems like a necessity in the minds of consumers.

Jobs

Something that may not fall under competition but that we should consider as opposition - There are approximately 2 million workers employed by the food service industry, a large percentage of which is fast food. If our goal is to put fast food out of business, we are also putting a lot of people out of jobs. It should be something we are aware of and able to answer to.

One possible response to this concern would be that these jobs are substandard, providing no benefits, less than full time employment and most of the workers are young people or others providing a second or third income. Most fast food workers work in the industry for a short time (3-6 months) before moving on and a very small percentage will ever move up in the company. Even managers are unfairly treated by being classified as "executives" so that overtime hours do not have to be paid.

Pay and treatment of employees would likely go up if fast food went out of business

A high school teacher mentioned in Eric Schlosser's article believes that students have started working longer hours after school and are poorer than they were sense 1968.

People presenting our side

Fast Food Nation (book)

Discusses the history of fast food, the marketing plans and links fast food to obesity.

A movie was made based on the book

Supersize Me (documentary)

Shows the adverse effects on Morgan Spurlock when he eats nothing but McDonalds fast food for 30 days. The 32 year old gained 24 pounds, experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction and liver damage. It took him 14 months to loose the weight.

This did in fact have an impact on McDonalds. They removed the supersized fries and beverages from their menu.

MC Spotlight

http://www.mcspotlight/org/ is an anti McDonalds website that presents news stories about McDonalds.

There are a lot of groups whose goal is general health, or fighting obesity that align with our ideas about fast food, among other things. For example:

Louie's kids is an organization that works to fight childhood obesity. And their website doesn't make my eyes bleed, which is apparently rare among these organizations.

weightconcern is an organization in the UK. The government has gotten very involved in the fast food industry's link to obesity problems.

In response to concerns many fast food restaurants have begun serving more "healthy alternatives" to their typical cuisine such as apples, juice and milk. Pictured below, apple fries available at Burger King. Basically sliced apples served in typical fry container.

Our Marketing Strategy
Supersize me has been successful in its campaign against fast food. We should discover why and use that in our marketing strategy. Is it exposure, the extreme nature of the film etc.

We could also use the marketing strategy of the fast food companies against them. By partnering with toy manufacturers, children's television and other child friendly companies we could get the message out to children about eating healthy home cooked food rather than fast food. If kids stop begging their parents to go to fast food, the parents will not feel pressured to go in order to make their children love them.

We should also market to parents of the children about the dangers of fast food to their children. I think that parents want to be loved, but most also want their children to lead healthy lives.

There is also the 18-24 market that is currently being advertised to by the fast food industry. These ads make their foods look exciting, tasty and sexy. Although we could use this in a way to promote our message I don't think it makes sense. I think it would be more effective to show the opposite of these commercials. Basically making it more realistic. We all know that Paris Hilton doesn't eat Carl's Junior. Maybe we could create similar commercials to the ones fast food makes to appeal to this market with overweight, or sick looking people?

Sources

This article has lots of information and research about fast food

Another Article

This article is about race differences in health marketing and fast food. I didn't use it in my research but I wanted to post it for anyone who could use it for their topic.