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The Questionable Power of Marketing Fast Food to Kids
The Happy Meal: from noble idea to big politics
It’s not enough that fast food is hard for a kid to resist — as is a McDonald's Play Land — but then, in the 80s, the fast-food giant threw the Happy Meal at us.
The Happy Meal was created in 1979 and changed the way McDonald’s could market food fast food to kids. Everyone’s had a Happy Meal at some point, and this is a look back at a product that had noble beginnings but grew into another fast-food juggernaut item.
The History of the Happy Meal
The Happy Meal has its roots not in a boardroom, but in a desire to help mothers.
The story starts in the mid-70s with a woman named Yolanda Fernandez De Cofino. She lived in Guatemala, and she and her husband operated several McDonald’s there. Yolanda noticed the number of young mothers coming into her restaurants and knew the challenges they faced raising young kids.
Noticing how difficult it could be for a mother to feed screaming kids, she came up with the “Menu Ronald.” This was a meal that offered a hamburger, fries, and a small sundae to make it easier for the mothers to feed their kids.
The idea was then brought to the attention of McDonald’s management in Chicago.
How Cereal Influenced the Modern Happy Meal
Eventually, the concept of the Happy Meal was turned over to Bob Bernstein. Bernstein developed this concept into the Happy Meal we know now.
Berstein was a consultant for McDonald’s and would regularly meet with franchise owners. They would go over all things related to customer experience, but the one big one that would come up from all these clients was how to create a better experience for families with kids.
When you watched kids in a restaurant — whether it be fast food or a regular one — kids often just picked at their parent’s meals. Kids' menus were also not a big thing yet.
It was 1977, and the idea from Guatemala seemed like a good one: Why not just package a kid-specific meal? This was McDonald’s, though, and it wasn’t as simple as just throwing some food together…
