Everything Tastes Better from McDonald's?

[tangomonster]

How sad is this:

Lovin' it: McBranding hooks preschoolers, study finds - Yahoo! News

When given five different pairs of food (burgers, fries, baby carrots, milk, etc.) in plain and McD's wrappers, the majority of kids felt that the stuff in the McD's wrapper tasted better (even milk and carrots)! Aside from the health implications of this, there is the issue of kids as young as three to five getting brainwashed by marketing and branding. Somehow I don't think these kids will be posting on this board forty years from now if they are that susceptible to marketing and buying "name brands"!

 

[justin]

Maybe I should fill a double cheeseburger wrapper with some McSpinach and see if my 2.5 yr old will eat it...

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I love me some McD's when I'm in the mood for a good, cheap ghetto Big Mac (the $1 menu double cheeseburger with Big Mac sauce on it, please). It's nice to be able to feed a family of 4 for under $10 these days. And it only takes them 1.5 minutes to complete your order. I'm lovin' it!

To respond to the article, is it really that different than grown adults thinking coffee tastes better when served in a styrofoam cup that says "Starbucks" on the side of it?

 

[FinanceDude]

To respond to the article, is it really that different than grown adults thinking coffee tastes better when served in a styrofoam cup that says "Starbucks" on the side of it?

Come on, we ALL KNOW a $4.00 cup of coffee tastes WAY BETTER than a $1.00 cup of coffee.........

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Drilling of branding into children is pretty frickin amazing.

My kid watches some PBS shows, barney, caillou, that sort of thing...off the tivo. We fast forward through the commercials for the most part.

Heres the fun part. We only drink Pepsi here. I always call it pepsi. I've never, to my knowledge, said the word 'coke' to him, nor has anyone else as a matter of course.

What does he call it? Coke. Points to the coke or pepsi machines and coke or pepsi dispensers and yells "COKE!!! YUM YUM DRINKY!!"

Except for an occasional commercial fragment, I cant explain how he picked up the word. Obviously easier to SAY than pepsi...

 

[VaCollector]

....time to buy MORE MCD!!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

To respond to the article, is it really that different than grown adults thinking coffee tastes better when served in a styrofoam cup that says "Starbucks" on the side of it?

Funny thing how perceptions and expectations affect people, aint it?

I could name a dozen products off the top of my head that objectively tested, are soundly drubbed by far cheaper products. And even faced with that information, people will not only just filter it through in their brains and kick out the data they dont want, they'll sharply defend the product.

Starbucks for example usually blind taste-tests in the middle of the pack at best with complaints of "burned" flavors and off tastes. With a bunch of milk added, it does rise to near the top.

If it werent for burger king and wendy's, macdonalds would definitely have some of the worst "burgers". Yet people keep going there...

 

[HFWR]

glass cleaner = Windex
tissue = Kleenex
soft drink = Coke
shortening = Crisco
petroleum jelly = Vaseline

How many more can you identify?

 

[Martha]

aspirin = aspirin (still a brand name in some countries now generic here)

copy = xerox

man underpants = jockeys

in line skates = rollerblades

 

[Outtahere]

disposable diapers = Pampers

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

q-tips

some of my x-company's products were so name-branded that when the competition screwed up, we'd get blamed for their mistakes. no, i did not make cotten swabs for a living.

and i can't remember my last time in a mcd's.

 

[justin]

thermos = thermos (former trademark of the Aladdin company I think)
search on net = google
kerosene = kerosene
adhesive bandage = band-aid

 

[Sam]

This is in VN, before 1975, probably still true today

Small 50cc motorcycle = Honda

 

[Goonie]

and i can't remember my last time in a mcd's.

I was in one Tuesday evening after a Big Band concert down in the park. Sometimes they just hit the spot. Although normally I go to Hardee's a couple of time a week.....but usually just for coffee with the gang.

As far as name-brand goes, I think that the coffee at BP-Amoco, Hardee's, and our local grocery store are far better tasting than StarYucks, and a heck of a lot cheaper!!! A 16oz styro cup of coffee at the grocery store is 75¢ including tax!!! And that's choice of regular, decaf, and usually about 3 or 4 flavors. Also they have French Vanilla and toffee flavored cappuccino for the same 75¢ price.

The best deal though is a small (8oz) coffee (or cappuccino) and 2 donuts of your choice, for $1. Let's see StarYuck's beat that!!!

 

[Fireup2020]

Doughboy - above ground pool (must be a CA thing)
Kotex - female personal hygiene products
chapstick - lip protectants
keds - sneakers

 

[Nords]

Hey, there are a lot of people in the world today who are too young to remember that the best things came in plain brown wrappers!

When given five different pairs of food (burgers, fries, baby carrots, milk, etc.) in plain and McD's wrappers, the majority of kids felt that the stuff in the McD's wrapper tasted better (even milk and carrots)! Aside from the health implications of this, there is the issue of kids as young as three to five getting brainwashed by marketing and branding.

This study might only prove that a brightly-colored piece of paper is more interesting than a plain one.

It'd be interesting to re-run the "study" with the original plain wrappers compared to wrappers from BK, Wendy's, Arbys, JITB, and 7-11. I bet they find out that all those wrappers are more interesting than plain.

Then it'd be amusing to see how the same food tastes when it's wrapped in a half-dozen different branded wrappers compared against each other.

A couple years ago our neighbor's kid was taking survey data for a science project on soda flavors. I don't remember the details but the experiment required tasting a half-dozen different flavors from plain cups in one sitting and naming both the flavor and the brand. Our kid, who at the time was a big soda drinker, went six-for-six in both categories and other kids were scoring pretty much the same accuracy.

I hardly drink soda at all and went one for six in both. It all would have tasted a lot better if it'd been appropriately labeled...

 

[Eagle43]

I've never liked any of McDonald's hamburgers. Their chicken sandwiches are better but not much. OTOH, I like the Big Breakfast and the coffee is great. As to sodas, I like diet coke and hate pepsi. I would wager I could tell the difference, blindfolded.

 

[bright eyed]

i clearly remember ordering mcnuggets at carls jr. when i was a kid!

some news magazine show (like 2020?) had kids choose a banana or a rock w/ a sticker on it (like sponge bob) for a snack, they almost all picked the rock!

my daughter has every major kid product logo memorized, can pick which channel she wants based on their logo, target by their logo, etc etc.

 

[Goonie]

I've never liked any of McDonald's hamburgers ........... OTOH, I like the Big Breakfast and the coffee is great.

Oh yeah...I forgot about the McD's coffee! I especially like it on Mondays! Reason being, our local McD's coffee is FREE every Monday!!! I don't know if that's normal throughout the chain, but it is here. When they say FREE....they mean it.....no other purchase is necessary! So when I think about it on a Monday, I swing through the drive-up and see Dorothy, she hands me my free cup of coffee, and off I go!

 

[clifp]

computer chips = Intel Inside...

sorry couldn't resist

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Ya had to do it.

At least you said chips and not chimps.

Generic branding is a very, very bad thing.

 

[thefed]

sticky paper - Post-It

personal lubricant - ky



Off topic a bit: I wonder why not many people notice who makes the zippers on almost ALL of their clothing?

 

[kaudrey]

flying disc = FrisbeeI can't remember the last time I was in a McD's either. I prefer Wendy's. But the Wendy's near my house had an electrical fire a month ago, and hasn't re-opened yet. I miss the Spicy Chicken Sandwich...

 

[justin]

Off topic a bit: I wonder why not many people notice who makes the zippers on almost ALL of their clothing?

ykk?

 

[thefed]

ykk?

sure thing



When i saw this McD's story on tv, they mentioned the results being that 54% of kids liked the stuff in the McD's wrapper vs. plain....that ain't a landslide by any means. I was expecting it to be like 80% or something, the way their making a big deal about it

 

[HFWR]

When given five different pairs of food (burgers, fries, baby carrots, milk, etc.) in plain and McD's wrappers, the majority of kids felt that the stuff in the McD's wrapper tasted better (even milk and carrots)!

I prefer the wrapper to McDonalds...