The CEO of McDonald’s recently defended the company’s mascot, Ronald McDonald. He said Ronald is not a bad guy. He is about fun. He is a clown.
This is indicative of the utter gutlessness of corporate America. The CEO is new. I guess he is sensitive. That’s the kind of CEO companies don’t need.
Some tiny liberal group called Corporate Accountability International, which pulls in under $4 million a year, in 2011 launched an attack on McDonald’s, calling on it to stop advertising with Ronald, get rid of happy meals, and stop making children fat. The shareholders rejected that suggestion by 95%.
Here we are two years later, and the little outfit is running another anti-McDonald’s campaign. Why? In-house mailing list fund-raising.
So, the CEO is still publicly defending Ronald. On May 23, the tiny outfit ran three media stories on how bad McDonald’s is. So what? Here is one of the largest companies on earth, whose new CEO is in bed-wetting mode, giving publicity to some powerless little anti-business advocacy group, two years after McDonald’s shareholders voted to ignore the outfit’s complaints.
The outfit spent a big chunk of its small budget on full-page ads run in six obscure newspapers in 2011. This is the least cost-effective advertising possible, unless your goal is to impress its donors. A spokesman told Ad Age that if 3% to 5% of McDonald’s shareholders voted with the outfit, that would be a victory.
Note to CEOs everywhere: if you are being challenged by a Leftie outfit that thinks that a 97% loss is a victory, you can sleep soundly at night. The outfit is using your company as a fund-raider for naive donors.
My grandson likes McDonald’s. He likes the 25 cent Chinese-made toy figures in the happy meals. He eats a cheeseburger once a week. He skips the French Fries. He gives me the apple slices. He has no idea who Ronald McDonald is.
Ronald has been invisible for years. Maybe he appears on Saturday morning cartoon shows. I don’t know. I have not seen him on a TV ad in years — more than 20 years, I imagine.
Some impotent little Leftie outfit still hammers on a theme to bury Ronald, when Ronald has been invisible for decades.
And what about the playrooms? Should McDonald’s close those? They are popular. Most fast food chains have added them. Kids love them. The Lefties know better than to attack the playrooms. Even Lefties are not that stupid.
Yet here is the CEO, defending a mascot who the company sent into retirement decades ago, as if the public cared.
Here are rules for CEOs:
1. Ignore little-bitty Leftie anti-business outfits. Don’t give them free publicity by acknowledging their existence.
2. If your existing customers like what you are selling, don’t apologize. Advertize more.
3. If your advertising campaign works, and you can prove it statistically, keep it. If not, don’t.
McDonald’s CEO remains in defense mode two years after shareholders voted to ignore an underfunded, one-day ad campaign run in a half a dozen tiny newspapers.
Warren Buffett has an egg McMuffin for breakfast and a quarter pounder and fries for lunch. The CEO of McDonald’s can safely forget about Corporate Accountability International.
This lib group can go to hell in a hand basket.
IF CEO FOLDS I WILL NO LONGER GO TO McDONALDS!
Maybe they SHOULD close down the playrooms….to many liberals and democrats get hurt in them…
My daughter and I just had a Ronald conversation. She told me the new “characters” are creepy. I told her they were told Ronald was creepy. She said no way, I miss him. McDonald’s is missing the boat. They should advertise the play rooms as “exercise gyms” for kids. You eat your protein burger and work out while mom has a “skinny” latte.
Happymeals DON'T make children fat, unresponsible, uneducated, and uninvolved parents make children fat. STOP blameing everyone else for your responsibilities.
One day we'll look back on this issue with amazement. Just like the Right fought to protect the Tobacco industry and regulations in the name of personal choice and "FREE MARKETS", they still put profits over people.
I highly doubt it "Seymour"! If you don't like McDonald's, then don't eat there! Otherwise, mind your own business and stop trying to dictate to others with your ridiculous comparisons between McDonald's and the Tobacco industry! I bet you favor legalizing marijuana while calling the Tobacco industry evil! What a joke… you Liberals are all such f*uckups!
Since Joe Camel got run off some folks have had greater ambitions.
There is not one thing on the McMenu that would not make me sick or fat. I won't eat there. McDonald's has a right to sell legal items, fascist intentions of a few "guardians of the public weal" not withstanding.
How can a mother keep her kids from wanting to go to McDonalds? It's not as simple as you think. The difference between unhealthy food and tobacco is just a matter of degree. You're too simplistic.
The Liberals ran off Joe Camel over Conservative opposition especially (el Rushbo), the protector of GREED over People!
Re: Seymuy Kleerly,
— One day we'll look back on this issue with amazement. —
If you live to be 100, you may go look and see if you were right. Which I doubt it will happen, even then.
— Just like the Right fought to protect the Tobacco industry and regulations in the name of personal choice and "FREE MARKETS", they still put profits over people. —
Just like I fight to protect any other victim-less human vice in the name of freedom and free choice. Just like the Puritans of old, leftists and those that wish to engage in controlling people's choices cannot stand the idea that someone, somewhere, is having fun.
Re: Seymour Kleerly,
— the protector of GREED over People! —
Never mind that thinking that those that want to "save" people from themselves are not being greedy themselves, is evidence of naivete and gullibility; two features that, by the way, decribe liberals.
Re: Seymour Kleerly,
— How can a mother keep her kids from wanting to go to McDonalds? —
"Wanting" to go and convincing mommy to take them are entirely things, Seymour.
— It's not as simple as you think. —
You never met my mother. Or anybody else's mother, for that matter.
— The difference between unhealthy food and tobacco is just a matter of degree. —
Yes, just like the difference between being gullible and being a fool is just a matter of degree.
— You're too simplistic. —
Pot, meet Kettle,
How does a liberal show greed by fighting against the tobacco industry?
When are people going to stand up to this kind of harrassment? We have become a nation of cowards. McDonalds should tell these people to go to straight to hell.