McDonald's USA Announces Happy Meal Promotional Alliance With Disney - Sensationalist Headlines

[img]http://news.mcdonalds.com/system/files-encrypted/nasdaq_kms/inline-images/Fireworks.jpg[/img] [quote][i]All McDonald’s Happy Meals Offered in U.S. will be in line with Disney’s Industry-Leading Nutrition Guidelines by June 2018[/i] OAK BROOK, Ill. and BURBANK, Calif., Feb. 27, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- McDonald’s USA and The Walt Disney Company today announced a promotional alliance driven by McDonald’s commitment to improve the nutritional standards of its Happy Meal menus. With this multi-year, non-exclusive agreement, Disney and McDonald’s will collaborate to add more fun to family mealtime with Happy Meal cross-promotional campaigns in the United States for select movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Disney Live Action, [b]Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm.[/b] The promotional alliance will begin in June with [b]Incredibles 2[/b], which arrives in theaters on June 15, followed in the fall by [b]Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2[/b], which debuts in theaters November 21. McDonald’s recent “Commitment to Families” announcement is the latest in a series of customer-led changes that created new global nutrition criteria for Happy Meals, which will reduce calories, saturated fat, sodium and added sugar in many Happy Meal combinations. In June 2018, all Happy Meals offered on menu boards in the United States will be in line with Disney’s industry-leading nutrition guidelines. “McDonald’s and Disney are two beloved family favorites and together with this alliance, we will create memorable moments for families,” said Morgan Flatley, McDonald’s USA Chief Marketing Officer. “As we continue to build a better McDonald’s, this relationship combines ingenuity in food and entertainment to encourage more balanced meal selections in our Happy Meals and inspire families in fun and innovative ways.”[/quote] [quote]In 2006, Disney became the first major media company to establish nutrition criteria, associating its brands and characters with more nutritionally balanced foods. The guidelines, developed with national nutrition authorities and aligned to federal standards, promote the consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy while limiting calories, saturated fats, sugars and sodium. Disney expanded the initiative in 2012 by introducing new standards for food advertising on programming targeted to kids and families. All food and beverage products advertised, sponsored, or promoted on Disney-owned TV channels where more than 25 percent of the audience is ages 12 and younger, and online platforms that are directed to children and families, are required to meet Disney’s nutrition guidelines.[/quote] [url]http://news.mcdonalds.com/news-releases/news-release-details/mcdonalds-usa-announces-happy-meal-promotional-alliance-disney[/url]

I think at one point they did a lot of promos with McD's but I feel like its been awhile. I definitely haven't seen MCU toys at Mcdonalds, or star wars. Plus McDonalds has had other studio's stuff in recent memory, like Powerpuff Girls, Pokemon, and Minions

McDonald's has mostly been pairing with Hasbro lately I believe. MLP and Transformers are pretty frequent. More Disney stuff would be fun.

According to Disney wikia: [quote]Toy Story, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Toy Story 3, Cars 2, Brave, Monsters University, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, and Finding Dory are (so far) the Pixar movies not to be promoted by McDonald's.[/quote] [editline]28th February 2018[/editline] Obviously out of date since its missing Coco and such but you can see its been quite a few movies [editline]28th February 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=Pascall;53167382]McDonald's has mostly been pairing with Hasbro lately I believe. MLP and Transformers are pretty frequent. More Disney stuff would be fun.[/QUOTE] I would love to see these done again when there's no movie to promote, and maybe other throwback toys like the Toy Story ones. Disney McD had good toys [t]https://www.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/disney100years.jpg[/t] [t]https://i.redd.it/7vnmhkqab2xy.jpg[/t]

[QUOTE=TheFilmSlacker;53167365]I thought this was always the case.[/QUOTE] [url=http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/08/entertainment/et-mcdonalds]They broke off their toy deal back in 2006[/url].

[QUOTE=Steel & Iron;53167403][url=http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/08/entertainment/et-mcdonalds]They broke off their toy deal back in 2006[/url].[/QUOTE] What a coincidence since the article mentions 2006 was when Disney started mandatory nutrition standards for food places it partners with :v:

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;53167387] [t]https://i.redd.it/7vnmhkqab2xy.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] Oh man, these are super cute. I remember these. I would love some Coco McDonald's toys for obvious reasons lol. [editline]28th February 2018[/editline] The good thing is, McDonald's happy meals have definitely stepped up in offering healthy choices. I get happy meals a lot when I'm in a rush and am only a little hungry. I love those apple slices.

I don't think a thread was ever made for it here, but [url=http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-happy-meal-cheeseburger-20180215-story.html]about two weeks ago McDonald's announced they're cutting the cheeseburger from the Happy Meal lineup[/url].

[QUOTE=TheFilmSlacker;53167365]I thought this was always the case.[/QUOTE] they canceled a partnership in like 2009-2010 then the Mcdonalds at downtown disney/disney springs disappeared. i think they hated eachother for a bit or some shit.

[QUOTE=Wii60;53167705]they canceled a partnership in like 2009-2010 then the Mcdonalds at downtown disney/disney springs disappeared. i think they hated eachother for a bit or some shit.[/QUOTE] I remember that thing, it was two floors [t]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uE-2sqg6FDA/maxresdefault.jpg[/t] now it's a fried chicken place

[QUOTE=Steel & Iron;53167481]I don't think a thread was ever made for it here, but [url=http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-happy-meal-cheeseburger-20180215-story.html]about two weeks ago McDonald's announced they're cutting the cheeseburger from the Happy Meal lineup[/url].[/QUOTE] are cheeseburgers that much less healthy compared to hamburgers?

I hope this means better quality toys. Got my nieces a Happy Meal last year, was very disappointed with the tat they passed off as toys. The ones I got as a kid still sit on my monitor at home, the ones my nieces got didn't even make it out of the car on the ride home. :v:

I would love to get happy meal with different toys. (I still have every chracter of every lego random pack I opened) But I feels like I would get insta marked as some sort of pedo/creep if was alone and I ordered happy meal.

[QUOTE=WhyNott;53168057]are cheeseburgers that much less healthy compared to hamburgers?[/QUOTE] american slices/singles/whatever legal name they have theres a reason they arnt legally called cheese [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cheese[/url]

[QUOTE=arleitiss;53168092]I would love to get happy meal with different toys. (I still have every chracter of every lego random pack I opened) But I feels like I would get insta marked as some sort of pedo/creep if was alone and I ordered happy meal.[/QUOTE] I doubt this would happen and it's no ones business either [editline]28th February 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=Steel & Iron;53167403][url=http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/08/entertainment/et-mcdonalds]They broke off their toy deal back in 2006[/url].[/QUOTE] I wasn't gonna say anything because I thought you might have just made a typo and would fix it but this page still 404's. I'd like to see the citation

[QUOTE=VenomousBeetle;53168182] I wasn't gonna say anything because I thought you might have just made a typo and would fix it but this page still 404's. I'd like to see the citation[/QUOTE] [url=https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/mcdonalds-serves-disney-branded-happy-meals-after-more-than-a-decade.html]I got it from the second link posted in this story. It gives me a 404 page when I click the link I posted but it works if you go through this story[/url]

[QUOTE=snookypookums;53168076]I hope this means better quality toys. Got my nieces a Happy Meal last year, was very disappointed with the tat they passed off as toys. The ones I got as a kid still sit on my monitor at home, the ones my nieces got didn't even make it out of the car on the ride home. :v:[/QUOTE] It's also completely possible that the two things are of the same objective entertainment value, and that cheap plastic crap just doesn't hold the appeal that it does to kids with access to smart phones. I'm not sure which toys you're referring to, but I don't remember the toys ever being of particularly high quality. I loved them when I was a child, but looking back? It wasn't exactly premium stuff.

[QUOTE=arleitiss;53168092]I would love to get happy meal with different toys. (I still have every chracter of every lego random pack I opened) But I feels like I would get insta marked as some sort of pedo/creep if was alone and I ordered happy meal.[/QUOTE] Fuck that man i go to my mcdonalds multiple times a day sometimes and see the same people, as long as youre paying they dont give a fuck

[QUOTE=arleitiss;53168092]I would love to get happy meal with different toys. (I still have every chracter of every lego random pack I opened) But I feels like I would get insta marked as some sort of pedo/creep if was alone and I ordered happy meal.[/QUOTE] The toys are regarded as collectibles, nobody would judge you.

I remember those toys being pieces of shit

[QUOTE=TheFilmSlacker;53167365]I thought this was always the case.[/QUOTE] amazingly not the case, disney lost their contract almost 10 years ago, it just seems like it

[QUOTE=phygon;53168290]It's also completely possible that the two things are of the same objective entertainment value, and that cheap plastic crap just doesn't hold the appeal that it does to kids with access to smart phones. I'm not sure which toys you're referring to, but I don't remember the toys ever being of particularly high quality. I loved them when I was a child, but looking back? It wasn't exactly premium stuff.[/QUOTE] I mean, as a kids toy, sure, the same plastic tat I got when I was a wee lad probably was infitinitely cooler to me than to kids in this day and age. But having said that, they're kids, so giving them a rolled up newspaper and letting their imagination go wild is an actual thing :v: Even despite that, the toys I got as a kid were these made in China little plastic things that you could wind up and they'd flip and were pretty tough, made for kids kinda stuff - had some heft to them. There's one I still remember which was the pupper from Mulan which I got around 1998, I think: [t]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31bqN%2BS2jiL._SX463_.jpg[/t] I mean, just look at the visible quality difference of that era of Happy Meal toys. I have a partial collection of this specific run at home because I loved the actual toys: [t]http://www.thorndon.co.nz/thorndon/mulan.jpg[/t] It still works and sits on the monitor of the family PC at home. the paints a little scuffed and faded, but the mechanism still works and it's a solid toy. On the other hand, last year my nieces got some weird forgettable generic-y McDonalds mascot thing that had little to no moving parts and the head of one of them snapped off in the car during the ride home. It was like those cheap figures you see on Ashens, where the makers couldn't even bothered to file down the seams from the mold, the paint was mismatched or 'Kill me' level on the characters faced, just shit that I'd get in one of those cheap Chinese emporiums you find in some American cities. Absolute garbage tier. Happy Meals used to be about the toys, but the quality of those toys have severely declined by the looks of it. I'm hoping that the partnership with Disney means that the toys (including the quality) have to pass muster for Disney, so McDonalds doesn't have to pass off their cheap tat anymore.

To add to the above, when Mattel started their Hot Wheels series in 1983, they actually sold bagged versions of cars off the shelves, in the early 90s they switched to plastic versions of real cars, then their own McDonald's designs, and by the end the cars weren't even ones that fit on the track, they were a larger size and had action features like internal colored lights or were a pullback car.

[QUOTE=Steel & Iron;53169234]To add to the above, when Mattel started their Hot Wheels series in 1983, they actually sold bagged versions of cars off the shelves, in the early 90s they switched to plastic versions of real cars, then their own McDonald's designs, and by the end the cars weren't even ones that fit on the track, they were a larger size and had action features like internal colored lights or were a pullback car.[/QUOTE] That's absolutely right, I actually forgot about those but I had them as well. This one, in particular is still a part of my collection: [t]https://i.pinimg.com/736x/eb/3d/76/eb3d76c2524dc2ae2e41348194abfc54.jpg[/t] In mint condition they're probably worth a pretty penny now, but young snookypookums gave no fucks. :v: The toys back then were just amazing.

Honestly I have no idea why y'all remember the toys so fondly. Even as a kid they were clearly shite, at least to me. [editline]1st March 2018[/editline] As a former McDonald's employee and a conscientious consumer I've always been rather perturbed by the Happy Meal's like, borderline pandering to kids. On the one hand having children's meal options is always a good thing, but you can't really sit there and defend their promotional alliances with famous brands as anything but a way to get kids to badger their parents into going to an obnoxiously unhealthy restaurant. It's clearly a cynical business move and that bugs me to no end. But bringing this up always seems to make me a "buzzkill", as if wanting to not incentivize feeding your kids shite and garbage is somehow morally blacker than the shit McDonald's does, as a brand.

[QUOTE=Chris Morris;53169296]Honestly I have no idea why y'all remember the toys so fondly. Even as a kid they were clearly shite, at least to me. [editline]1st March 2018[/editline] As a former McDonald's employee and a conscientious consumer I've always been rather perturbed by the Happy Meal's like, borderline pandering to kids. On the one hand having children's meal options is always a good thing, but you can't really sit there and defend their promotional alliances with famous brands as anything but a way to get kids to badger their parents into going to an obnoxiously unhealthy restaurant. It's clearly a cynical business move and that bugs me to no end. But bringing this up always seems to make me a "buzzkill", as if wanting to not incentivize feeding your kids shite and garbage is somehow morally blacker than the shit McDonald's does, as a brand.[/QUOTE] The toys were fun to collect. I was aware as a kid they were really cheap compared to my action figures but I still loved to get them. It'd be cool to see fun happy meal sets come back instead of the generic crap they've been doing forever now. As for the marketing part...good parents should be able to exercise moderation. There's nothing wrong with enjoying some McDonalds every so often.

[QUOTE=Hanso;53169339] As for the marketing part...good parents should be able to exercise moderation. There's nothing wrong with enjoying some McDonalds every so often.[/QUOTE] There isn't, but I also don't understand why people tend to nail me to the wall when I point out the cynicism of predatory marketing behaviour. Is it somehow taboo, or unfair, or cruel, to criticize massive, globe-spanning corporate enterprise? Surely not criticising it is how they get away with so much abuse of the consumer as many corporations have in the past.

[QUOTE=Hanso;53169339]The toys were fun to collect. I was aware as a kid they were really cheap compared to my action figures but I still loved to get them. It'd be cool to see fun happy meal sets come back instead of the generic crap they've been doing forever now. As for the marketing part...good parents should be able to exercise moderation. There's nothing wrong with enjoying some McDonalds every so often.[/QUOTE] That's actually part of the allure, to be honest. I don't know how other people's childhoods were but when I was growing up, the toy was a reward that you got for doing something well. I'm sure it still functions along similar lines, but I've seen my sister give toys to my nieces sometimes because why not. For me growing up, each toy was an achievement and was loved to death. But then again, all those toys were also looked after rather well by me all things considered because of how valuable they were and how hard I had to work to get them. Like my Micro Machines, for instance - All Division 1st rank in fourth grade got me the Micro Machines set. I [I]still[/I] have the mat and everything. Each successive top rank in school earned me five cars. I got my Happy Meals toys from birthdays or when I did well on an important test. Happy Meal toys (and by extension, Kinder Egg toys) were kinda awesome and cherished because they were a toy that you just got by virtue of eating at a fast food place (which was rare for me growing up, because my parents were pretty frugal, so eating out was an expensive affair for the full family). It was also to trade other bits that you had with friends from school to collect the full set of any given run that made them awesome. Like I'm pretty sure I have the entire run of a specific Hot Wheels collection this way and while the cars weren't particularly memorable, the fact that I 'beat the system' of my parents not getting me enough Happy Meals to acquire the full set the easy way, but by trading up to it, is why they are still some of my more cherished cars in the collection. Along with Mr. Snakey seen below, but the reason should be pretty fucking obvious. :v: [IMG]http://img.bidorbuy.co.za/image/upload/v1485868579/user_images/976/2018976/170131151612_IMG_8656.jpg[/IMG] When I saw the disappointments that passed for Happy Meals toys now, I realized that this shit wasn't even worth keeping, let alone collecting. Hopefully with Disney there's some inherent value to the toys to merit them keeping as mementos.

[QUOTE=Chris Morris;53169353]There isn't, but I also don't understand why people tend to nail me to the wall when I point out the cynicism of predatory marketing behaviour. Is it somehow taboo, or unfair, or cruel, to criticize massive, globe-spanning corporate enterprise? Surely not criticising it is how they get away with so much abuse of the consumer as many corporations have in the past.[/QUOTE] Nope, nothing wrong with that. I think people might just be lashing at you because they might enjoy things like collecting happy meal sets. Personally the marketing doesn't bother me. It was fun to get excited for stuff like this as a kid. Same for seeing the fun commercials with cereal mascots and stuff. People feel a lot of nostalgia for this kind of thing. [editline]1st March 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=snookypookums;53169359]That's actually part of the allure, to be honest. I don't know how other people's childhoods were but when I was growing up, the toy was a reward that you got for doing something well. I'm sure it still functions along similar lines, but I've seen my sister give toys to my nieces sometimes because why not. For me growing up, each toy was an achievement and was loved to death. But then again, all those toys were also looked after rather well by me all things considered because of how valuable they were and how hard I had to work to get them. Like my Micro Machines, for instance - All Division 1st rank in fourth grade got me the Micro Machines set. I [I]still[/I] have the mat and everything. Each successive top rank in school earned me five cars. I got my Happy Meals toys from birthdays or when I did well on an important test. Happy Meal toys (and by extension, Kinder Egg toys) were kinda awesome and cherished because they were a toy that you just got by virtue of eating at a fast food place (which was rare for me growing up, because my parents were pretty frugal, so eating out was an expensive affair for the full family). It was also to trade other bits that you had with friends from school to collect the full set of any given run that made them awesome. Like I'm pretty sure I have the entire run of a specific Hot Wheels collection this way and while the cars weren't particularly memorable, the fact that I 'beat the system' of my parents not getting me enough Happy Meals to acquire the full set the easy way, but by trading up to it, is why they are still some of my more cherished cars in the collection. Along with Mr. Snakey seen below, but the reason should be pretty fucking obvious. :v: [IMG]http://img.bidorbuy.co.za/image/upload/v1485868579/user_images/976/2018976/170131151612_IMG_8656.jpg[/IMG] When I saw the disappointments that passed for Happy Meals toys now, I realized that this shit wasn't even worth keeping, let alone collecting. Hopefully with Disney there's some inherent value to the toys to merit them keeping as mementos.[/QUOTE] Was pretty much the same here. I got somewhat lucky with the happy meal toys because a family member worked at McDonalds and was always able to get us the toys. Also, holy shit I swear that hot wheels car looks familiar! I used to have a bucket full of them as a kid and I loved the ones with unique designs like that.

[QUOTE=Wii60;53168093]american slices/singles/whatever legal name they have theres a reason they arnt legally called cheese [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cheese[/url][/QUOTE] yeah its not cheese folks its plastic