14 January 2009

We Think We Know Why Johnny Can't Concentrate In School

1913.There's been a big debate in the media and amongst John Q. Public about why kids have so much ADD these days and have such trouble focussing and studying in school.

I'll admit that I'm no expert, but I think I've found at least one piece of the puzzle. From a McDonald's direct mailing circular, this bit of marketing genius not only leapt out at us, it put its hands around our necks and pinned us to the ground until we tapped out:



Yep. You read it right: Get a free espresso with the purchase of any Happy Meal® or Mighty Kids Meal® purchase.

Just the thing little Jimmy/Janie/Akeem/Sanjay/whoever needs before breaking the back of 2+2=4; a nice healthy hit of caffeine. Mighty Kids Meal? More like Mighty Jittery Kids Meal. And the Happy Meal will be just that much brighter with a hit of hi-test.

And all the time I was but a neat thing, all the adults told me it would stunt my growth. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

Memo to McDonald's: It's called juxtaposition. Gott in Himmel, look into that, will you?

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The idea isn't to serve the child a Happy Meal with an espresso drink. The thought behind the coupon is to offer the parent something as well since they are the ones making the purchase. The child gets the Happy Meal or Mighty Kids Meal and the parent can try the nee espresso coffee.

Samuel John Klein said...

I knew that actually. The point of my post was a somewhat-sarcastic comment was that the layout of the ad doesn't quite suggest this, and reads just as readilty as to give the kiddies an espresso with their lunch.

Perhaps I pitched my sarcasm a little too subtly, who knows. But yes, we knew that.