t's not every day that a 9-year-old girl chastises the CEO of
one of the world's biggest fast-food chains.
Yet that's exactly what young Hannah Robertson did Thursday
morning at McDonald's annual shareholders meeting in Chicago. When
the meeting opened up to questions, Hannah was first up at the mic
with a pointed criticism.
"It would be nice if you stopped trying to trick kids into
wanting to eat your food all the time," she told McDonald's CEO Don
Thompson.
Ouch.
Hannah, a native of Kelowna, British Columbia, didn't get to
Chicago on her own, of course. She and her mother, Kia Robertson,
who blogs about how parents can help kids make healthful food
choices, showed up as part of a contingent from the watchdog
group.
We want them to stop their predatory marketing to kids," says
Sriram Madhusoodanan, a national campaign organizer with the
group.
Corporate Accountability has been pushing McDonald's to change
its ways for years. Two years ago, it launched a so far
unsuccessful bid urging McDonald's to retire Ronald, its famous
clown mascot. Its latest social media campaign involves harnessing
the power of mom bloggers like Robertson to tell McDonald's that
they're "not loving' the company's efforts targeting kids,
such as including toys in Happy Meals.
Ironically, as we previously reported on The Salt, mom
bloggers are a demographic that McDonald's actively courted as it
revamped its Happy Meals — downsizing french fries and adding
apples to every meal — in response to pressure from parents and
public health officials.
CEO Thompson pointed to those efforts in defending his company's
marketing practices. "We sell a lot of fruits and veggies and are
trying to sell even more," he said in his reply to Hannah.
But Madhusoodanan wants to see the company do far more. His
group put forth a shareholders' proposal to get McDonald's to
assess its nutritional initiatives and their impact on childhood
obesity, in the face of growing public concern about the health
impacts of fast food. It failed, attracting just 6.3 percent of
shareholders' votes.
McDonald's same-store sales have been sliding since October.
Thompson says he wants to add more healthful items to the menu.
Thompson — who Hannah says called her "brave" in a brief
exchange after the meeting — challenged her mother Kia's assertion
that McDonald's does an end run around parents. "We're not
marketing to schools," he said point blank. "We don't do that."
"We are not the cause of obesity," Thompson said. "We are not
marketing unjustly to kids. Ronald is not a bad guy. ... He's about
fun." (Unless, of course, you've got a fear of clowns.)
And just as the question period began with a young opponent for
Thompson, it wrapped up with another child near the end rushing to
the mic in the CEO's defense.
The young boy listed the many ways he thinks McDonald's helps
kids. He cited the RMHC and events like McCare Nights, in
which McDonald's donates a portion of sales at a particular
franchise to a school it has partnered with. Schools often urge
parents and students to eat at McDonald's on these nights to raise
money for school activities. But that sort of soft marketing, says
Madhusoodanan, is part of the problem.
"That's exactly," he says, "how they build brand loyalty."