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Apr 3, 2024

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“The Power of Teamwork” Original Source: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/mcdonalds-adult-happy-meals- controversy-Cactus-Plant-Flea-Market/633605/ Video Source: Happy Meals for adults?! (Segment starts 3:00 minutes in.) Summary: This article explained McDonald’s newest advertising campaign and attempt at gathering more market share. As well as speaks on the difficulties associated with advertising towards too many markets at once. McDonald's, like many other fast food companies, recently has begun partnering with different celebrities and brands to attempt engaging niche markets with their products. Companies like Burger King and Wendys followed along by making their own celebrity themed fast food meals, however McDonald’s continues to be a pioneer in the industry. Their latest campaign Adult “Happy Heals' 'is a partnership between them and a streetwear brand Cactus Plant Flea Market. They are both targeting an older audience by marketing towards adults as well as trying to grab onto part of an entirely different market by incorporating toys that could sell as collectibles with a certain crowd of streetwear fanatics. This increased crowd of consumers however has brought about problems on a retail level, employees are starting to complain on multiple social media sites about too many people ordering the promo and how this is slowing down stores tremendously. Marketing Implications & Learning Points In class we’ve discussed how important targeted marketing campaigns can be as well as the use of well known figures in advertising. This article outlined how McDonalds is centering its campaigns towards specific markets as well as being a leader in the new trend of pairing up food deals with celebrities. For example they’re marketing it as an Adult happy meal which already is a different audience than most McDonalds meals are geared towards. This creates interest in the store among a new group of people with a higher average income than their traditionally younger audience. Other businesses can use this as an example of how to increase the size of their

potential market. This is also an important example of how a company can start and stay on top of a trend. Another major learning point from this is how McDonald’s and other companies can leverage Celebrities and other companies' names without directly being linked or investing in new items on their menu. They simply use menu items they already have which cuts down on costs making the venture even more profitable. Then because its limited time promos even if the brand they partner with goes through periods of bad publicity later on, Mcdonalds and anyone else following this trend are safe. No one is attributing any of the other brands bad press to them, an example of this being how in 2020 Mcdonald's partnered with Travis Scott. A few months after that partnership ended Scott was facing a lot of bad press for his Astroworld festival however McDonalds name wasn't mentioned at all. This opens a new avenue for companies to steal only good publicity and fame from having trendy collabs without worrying about being too heavily involved with any negative attributes of the people or entity they are partnering with. Opinions and evaluations I’m not a person who frequently eats fast food, However I do enjoy fashion and collectibles. As the article stated though when I see them collaborating with a brand that I have more interest in like Cactus Flea Market it makes me more inclined to shop there. I think it’s a great idea to give people more incentive to go as well as use another brand's already existing customer market to net new consumers for yourself. If I know I can get an item that potentially has long term value as well as is marketed towards me, then I’m more inclined to buy something like fast food. I do think however that when planning a campaign like this a company has to do more work on making sure it happens successfully. As mentioned in the article McDonalds employees were swamped with orders and it’s said the new boxes weren’t meant to be stacked which causes storage problems. As well as a general lack of promotional items for the huge influx that’s expected when you do a campaign like this. It's a common problem that fast food companies have these huge promotions but fall short on supply. If that problem is solved I think this is an amazing marketing approach to bridge together current target markets with new ones.

Another huge aspect of this campaign is that it's possible for companies to consistently use the same idea and still get Value out of it. Mcdonalds has already had a series of different Celebrity meals, with all of them consisting of simple matchups of already available menu items. This means McDonalds hasn’t had to spend extra money on R&D or training employees on making new items. They also can use different celebrity names and consistently attract more customers even though they’re selling what they always have been. Relevant Images: Adult happy meal box as well as the 4 toys made with Collab partner Cactus Plant Flea Market, already being resold online.

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