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Mcdonalds Target Athletes

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McAthletes Target McChildren Imagine your eight year old self watching this commercial that features Olympic athletes—your role models—eating Chicken McNuggets, French Fries, and a McFlurry. Instantly, you feel obligated to go to McDonald’s to buy the same thing; after all, you want to be just like them. Athletes build a bridge between consumer and company, which helps companies—like McDonald’s—sell more of their product (Arthur). For this reason, McDonald’s sponsors many popular athletes, including the following: Charles Barkley, Usain Bolt, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Lebron James, Michael Jordan, and Michael Phelps—just to name a few (McDonald's Endorsers - Athletes). When fit athletes are featured in junk food commercials, people perceive …show more content…

Many inquire why the effects are not as drastic for adults, but the answer is simple: children ranging from the ages of five to seventeen years old preview more unhealthy, athlete-sponsored commercials than their adult counterparts …show more content…

By aligning with athletes and sports, companies are able to target children—the next generation of consumers (Arthur). When children are targeted at a young age, they become systematically familiar with the product; by the time they reach adulthood, it becomes second nature. In other words, they do not think of the detrimental effects McDonald’s has on their bodies. In order to lure in children to become lifelong customers, McDonald’s created a contest that brought children to the Olympics, where they could enjoy the games, and meet Ronald McDonald along with former gold medalists (Berkes). By undergoing this once in a lifetime experience, these children will become lifelong customers since they will associate McDonald’s with jubilant memories. Forever, McDonald’s will become a place for them to recall their nostalgic memories. With the largest global fan base, soccer fans are ideal to market to in hopes of obtaining new, lifelong customers (Arthur). Since McDonald’s has locations worldwide and soccer is the most popular sport around the world, they currently sponsor soccer tournaments and players. This allows them to access and influence 3.5 billion fans worldwide—a number of fans they would never have been able to reach. At the 2016 Euro soccer tournament, McDonald’s created a competition where children took selfies of them eating at McDonald’s in hope to win the opportunity to be

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