Kids fail the Pepsi Challenge - McDonalds wins - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Medmech · #1 08-06-2007, 07:57 PM

This is not surprising but it should warn would be parents to stay away.

Study: Food in McDonald's wrapper tastes better to kids
Story Highlights
Study: Kids said food tasted better if it was in McDonald's packaging
Researcher: Kids' perception of taste "physically altered by the branding"
Ad expert: McDonald's label versus another familiar brand would have been fairer
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CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Anything made by McDonald's tastes better, preschoolers said in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can trick the taste buds of young children.

In comparing identical McDonald's foods in name-brand and plain wrappers, the unmarked foods always lost.

Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches.

The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald's foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.

"You see a McDonald's label and kids start salivating," said Diane Levin, a childhood development specialist who campaigns against advertising to kids. She had no role in the research.

Levin said it was "the first study I know of that has shown so simply and clearly what's going on with (marketing to) young children."

Study author Dr. Tom Robinson said the kids' perception of taste was "physically altered by the branding." The Stanford University researcher said it was remarkable how children so young were already so influenced by advertising.

The study involved 63 low-income children ages 3 to 5 from Head Start centers in San Mateo County, Calif. Robinson believes the results would be similar for children from wealthier families.

The research, appearing in August's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, was funded by Stanford and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The study is likely to stir more debate over the movement to restrict ads to kids. It comes less than a month after 11 major food and drink companies, including McDonald's, announced new curbs on marketing to children under 12.

McDonald's says the only Happy Meals it will promote to young children will contain fruit and have fewer calories and less fat.

"This is an important subject and McDonald's has been actively addressing it for quite some time," said company spokesman Walt Riker. "We've always wanted to be part of the solution and we are providing solutions."

But Dr. Victor Strasburger, an author of an American Academy of Pediatrics policy urging limits on marketing to children, said the study shows too little is being done.

"It's an amazing study and it's very sad," Strasburger said.

"Advertisers have tried to do exactly what this study is talking about -- to brand younger and younger children, to instill in them an almost obsessional desire for a particular brand-name product," he said.

Just two of the 63 children studied said they'd never eaten at McDonald's, and about one-third ate there at least weekly. Most recognized the McDonald's logo but it was mentioned to those who didn't.

The study included three McDonald's menu items -- hamburgers, chicken nuggets and french fries -- and store-bought milk or juice and carrots. Children got two identical samples of each food on a tray, one in McDonald's wrappers or cups and the other in plain, unmarked packaging. The kids were asked whether they tasted the same or whether one was better. (Some children didn't taste all the foods.)

McDonald's-labeled samples were the clear favorites. French fries were the biggest winner; almost 77 percent said the labeled fries tasted best while only 13 percent preferred the others.

Fifty-four percent preferred McDonald's-wrapped carrots versus 23 percent who liked the plain-wrapped sample.

The only results not statistically clear-cut involved the hamburgers, with 29 kids choosing McDonald's-wrapped burgers and 22 choosing the unmarked ones.

Fewer than one-fourth of the children said both samples of all foods tasted the same.

Pradeep Chintagunta, a University of Chicago marketing professor, said a fairer comparison might have gauged kids' preferences for the McDonald's label versus another familiar brand, such as Mickey Mouse.

"I don't think you can necessarily hold this against" McDonald's, he said, since the goal of marketing is to build familiarity and sell products.

He noted that parents play a strong role in controlling food choices for children so young.

But Robinson argued that because young children are unaware of the persuasive intent of marketing, "it is an unfair playing field E-mail to a friend

LUVMBDiesels · #2 08-06-2007, 08:04 PM

This is just an example of how well McDonalds spends it advertising dollar. Maybe we should take them off the air like cigarettes

I know from experience that my kids would eat whatever garbage came in a McDonalds wrapper. I used to put their "real food" in a happy meal box to get them to eat it. I just wish that McD had carrots and other healthier things available 17 years ago when My kids were small.

Still you can't fault them for doing their job and doing it better than anybody else.

Medmech · #3 08-06-2007, 08:11 PM

I'm sort of lucky my kids crave Subway.

tankdriver · #4 08-06-2007, 08:43 PM

I read a story on soft drink taste tests. Even people who chose Pepsi responded that they would continue to buy Coke. Brand identification is strong.

Pete Geither · #5 08-06-2007, 09:19 PM

McDonalds is better because the parents always take the kids to McDonalds. Blame the parents,,, it's quick and cheap.

Medmech · #6 08-06-2007, 09:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete Geither

McDonalds is better because the parents always take the kids to McDonalds. Blame the parents,,, it's quick and cheap.

So is Subway which is luckily my kids first choice but Mickey D's does much more to capture the kids.

Pete Geither · #7 08-06-2007, 09:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Howitzer

So is Subway which is luckily my kids first choice but Mickey D's does much more to capture the kids.

We do a lot of work for MickeyD's, but I just can't bring myself to eat there.

Hatterasguy · #8 08-06-2007, 09:54 PM

I was a MickeyD's fanatic when I was little, but my parents never let me go. Now I don't know what I was thinking, I havn't been inside one in at least 7 years.

Yuck.

Subway is a different matter, its really good. I need to be carefull, I limit myself to one cookie now.

Hogweed · #9 08-06-2007, 09:54 PM

this thread would be more appealing to me if your member name was mayor mc cheese

Carleton Hughes · #10 08-07-2007, 08:31 AM

Well now,you can take your choice...kill the kids quickly like a cop shooting at a snake.

Or let'em die slowly by eating this mass-market sludge...

jlomon · #11 08-07-2007, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete Geither

McDonalds is better because the parents always take the kids to McDonalds. Blame the parents,,, it's quick and cheap.

I'm not going to argue that parents share some of the blame. But when Ronald McDonald has more world-wide recognition amongst children than Santa Claus, you know that Mickey D's marketing people are doing their share of damage as well. A large part of McD's strategy involves focusing on children who watch too much television as well as cross-promotional events with movies, toys and theme parks aimed at children. They also feature "playland" set ups in predominantly urban areas where there aren't parks or playgrounds so that parents stay longer with children and turn a 20 minute meal into an event that the child associates with more fun than just eating.

Lots of companies use these strategies when marketing to kids, but McDonalds pioneered a lot of them in the 70's. They're helping to make sure that each successive generation of children buys in to the consumer lifestyle by making them more susceptible to advertising messages. Personally I think its wrong to target two and three year olds with powerful advertising messages that they respond to without understanding why. Which is one of the reasons my kid watches PBS when he watches children's programming. No commercials to worry about.

SwampYankee · #12 08-07-2007, 10:03 AM

I'm going to have to save some wrappers then!

It's 100% the parents' fault if a kid overindulges themselves on McD, or any junkfood. Unless the kid is independently wealthy and has their own driver to drive them to the fast food restaurant or the store so they can purchase their own bag of Cheetos.

I was subjected to Joe Camel and never smoked. I was subjected to Ronald McDonald and rarely got McDs as a kid (although it did instill a fear of pedophile clowns in me). I was subjected to Cap't. Crunch and never got sugary breakfast cereal. I was subjected to Spuds McKenzie and never...strike that, bad example.

I was a Saturday morning cartoon junkie held hostage to all of the advertising schemes conjured up in the smoky back rooms by rich, white men. But the fact was my parents didn't buy the stuff, told us why it wasn't good for us and and we only ate fast food on a special kid occassion. We pestered my parents constantly for Froot Loops and Happy Meals. But, apparently, an amazing thing happened. They said no! And didn't buy the junk for us.

So far, this crazy scheme has managed to work for my own kids! The powers one has when they control the money and the transportation to obtain said offending products are incredible. It's very easy for my wife and I to control what our kids eat. Now, if I could only control myself...

Mistress · #13 08-07-2007, 01:22 PM

I wonder if you saved the wrappers and put veggies in them at home if the kids would eat them? Any parents out there want to try this?

Dee8go · #14 08-07-2007, 02:19 PM

American kids maybe malnourished and poorly educated, but they're not STOOPID, Mistress! You think they fall for passing that vegetable crap off as if it cam from the Golden Arches?