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Pop quiz! Which is better: a Chicken McNugget or a small morsel of chicken meat that has been battered and fried to look like, smell like and taste like a Chicken McNugget, a piece of chicken lacking only the telltale McDonalds' wrapping? 
If you answered the McNugget, you aren't alone; A recent study of preschoolers in which the children sampled identical McDonald's foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers found that the unmarked food always lost. Even when it was apples, carrots or milk they still picked the McDonald's wrapped snack.
Study author Dr. Tom Robinson told the AP that the kids' perception of taste was "physically altered by the branding."
Oak Brook-based McDonald's is no stranger to the power of brands and marketing. After all, it was their clever "super size me" campaign that was turned against them in the Morgan Spurlock film Super Size Me. This study comes only a month after McDonald's and 11 other major food and drink companies announced new curbs on marketing to children under 12. Perhaps studies like this eventually will lead to a backlash against the behemoth fast food corporation, much like cigarette advertising was outlawed on television in the 70's.
Still, Chicagoist wasn't too surprised to hear the results of this study; even as a preschooler, if given the choice about where to go, we'd pick McDonald's — and Chicagoist's parents never took us there, so we must have picked up the cravings from all the marketing and advertising. We just knew it was where we wanted to go. And it doesn't shock us to discover that not much has changed.
Image via Wow Philippines.
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People all over the blogosphere are reacting to this with overdone indignance -- I'm glad to see a tempered, rational response from Chicagoist.
Here's the way I see it -- children in my own family have pitched fits because they didn't like their box pasta because it was the wrong shape. (i.e. They said it tasted bad.) I don't think there's anything particularly nefarious going on here.
They important issue Chicagoist needs to tackle is how this applies to Lollopalooza. Would you have seen more non-hipster bands had they been wearing McDonald's uniforms? Would you have given us fifteen posts in which you referred to yourselves as "McChicagoist?"
As an adult, I can attest that some pasta that is introduced in new novelty shapes (I tried the Sponge Bob a few years back) do taste gross. I don't know why, but the original is always better.
When I was a kid our elementary school would give out McDonalds gift certificates if you won the good behavior award that month. At my house, they always expired because my dad wouldn't take us.
A critic of the study pointed out in the Tribune that a more balanced study would've involved labeling BOTH choices, one as McDonalds and one as something else, since everyone, throughout the lifespan, shows a preference for branded items.
Hmm, wouldn't it be a scandal if procurement departments for cash-starved agencies like the CTA and Pace purchased that way (by specifying certain brands instead of buying on specification and function)?
I think that's the real point, JuliaPorter ... that people prefer branded items over non-branded items, not that McDonald's has better branding than anyone else. Perhaps a more-fair study would have used other brands as well as McDonald's, except that few other brands target preschoolers so aggresively ... they're the only ones that have puppets and clowns. The kids might not have recognized the Burger King, for instance. Or they might have been scared of it, like me.
yeah.. all this shows is that people, *especially* kids, go with the more familiar face/brand. try blind taste tests and see where that gets you instead.
i forgot, about pasta in different shapes tasting bad.. i bought a 5-pack of spiderman-branded kraft mac & cheese. (it was on sale, obviously.) man, it wasn't even in different shapes and it tasted *awful.* either they messed with the flavor for the kiddy angle or i've been spoiled by annie's.
Branding is so effective, that Pepsi will flat out admit that their water if from the tap! and dumb motherfuckers will still buy that shit as if Pepsi's tap water is the Nectar of the Gods, while that damn faucet in their house, spits out poison. Never ceases to amaze me.
This is why i argue with carnival vendors when they refuse to acknolwedge their fake rib sandiwches are not as good as McDonalds fake rib sandwiches! Viva la McRib.
I bet the children also would have chosen food with a wrapper containing a generic picture of a puppy, kitten or bunny rabbit rather than food with a plain wrapper.
If you don't want it, don't eat it.
I think we need more laws targeting every kind of advertising at everyone until we can all sit on the beach drinking herbal tea and listen to someone playing the sitar. I am an adult but I can’t make my own decisions, or decisions for my kids! Thank gosh the federal government is there to protect me, otherwise I might have bought a honey bun and coffee on the way to work today. Down with caffeine! Down with butter! Up with good, clean fun! One time someone offered me a beer in high school. It was a traumatic experience! I ran. I closed my eyes and ran. It was a close call, though.
Saying that advertising cigarettes is like advertising food is so absurd. If chicagoist feels so strongly about not communicating food and beverage that is bad for you, I'm sure they will stop running the beer of the week feature and sharing recipes and restaurant reviews featuring dishes laden with saturated fat. Or, at least require that visitors to the site first attest they are of legal age to view such adult content.
Um this food is being marketed at children who don't know any better. Their restaurant and beer reviews are aimed at adults who hopefully do.
I'm sure that you can tell the difference between a nefarious marketing plot and a restaurant that is being reviewed by an online publication.
Kids who can't buy it without their parents!
Do you know how much of this crap you have to eat for it to impact your health? You have to be eating it all the time. Chances are anyone who's eating McDonalds all the time isn't going to be exercising and eating their broccoli anyway. I mean, think about it for two seconds, it's not like the kids or the parents who eat McDonalds too much are going to eat steamed broccoli and sashami in its stead.
Yet here we go with more idiotic laws designed to hold the hand of the ostensibly feeble minded public.
When I was a kid, I loved McDonald's, even though my parents never took me there. Why? Because my parents understood they were the decision makers in my family. That's what's missing today. Parents have stopped making decisions and taking responsibility for their actions and the actions of their children.
There was that other story where Two Buck Chuck wine was placed in the bottles of more expensive wine... and all the adult tasters said the more "expensive" wine was better tasting than the Two Buck Chuck... even though it was all Charles Shaw wine.