How Does Mcdonald's Target Children

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The cigarette industry is worth over 35 million dollars even though cigarettes are dangerous and addictive. Cigarettes can lead to cancer, high cholesterol, asthma, heart disease and much more (Pietrangelo). By the same token, the cigarette industry thrives off their customers’ naiveties. Cigarette companies target children with seemingly harmless advertisements; the companies give away toys to kids, and their commercials have contained images of Santa Claus and babies. Now take a step back and replace the word “cigarette” with the word “McDonald’s.” The previous sentences are still true. Everyone considers cigarettes to be very bad. Everyone considers McDonald’s to be somewhat bad. However, not only does McDonald’s make food that …show more content…

Much of McDonald’s promotional techniques specifically target children. McDonald’s does not build play places to target adults. Ronald McDonald wasn’t created to attract adults either. And the Happy Meal toys are most definitely for the young at heart too. In fact, McDonald’s is the world’s largest toy distributor (Guenette). Not surprisingly, when a kid asks their parent to take them into McDonald’s, the parents end up eating there too. McDonald’s makes the kids happy and the parents are still enjoy the food from when they grew up eating it as a child. Like a light attracting flies, McDonald’s looks bright and exciting but ends up burning them them in end. Overall, McDonald’s hooks the kids young, then keeps them coming back as adults with their own …show more content…

The average American kid watches over two-hundred fifty McDonald’s advertisements a year on TV-- far more than any other fast-food company. Parents can not win the fight against McDonald’s advertising alone. Kids beg and plead to go to their favorite restaurant without knowing better. Parents can say no, but the kids throw fits. Ultimately, sometimes the kids win and they go to the restaurant and get the toy that they saw on TV. McDonald’s knows the kids do not care about the food inside the box, they care about the toy inside the box. Thus, McDonald’s spends over 520 million dollars on advertising and toys, 350 million dollars being on the toys alone (Neis). Children are exposed to far too many fast food ads, and the American government has done nothing to prevent

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