Source: happymeal.com
Happy Meal fitness trackers are now an exercise in crisis management
As wearable health tracker technology has grown in popularity over the past few years, the devices have begun appearing on the shelves of many retailers interested in being associated with health and wellness. McDonald’s, as part of its continuing effort to position itself as more on-trend with today’s health-conscious consumer, began placing activity trackers at the bottom of Happy Meals in the U.S. and Canada earlier in the month. But the initiative, which was at least in part a response to critics who have long pegged McDonald’s food aimed at children as unhealthy, has become an exercise in crisis management.
After appearing in Happy Meals for only a short time, McDonald’s began receiving reports that the wristband of the Step-It health tracker was giving children skin irritations, according to USA Today. McDonald’s has pulled the fitness trackers from Happy Meals in response to the complaints.
Previously, the blog, Wearable, and other review websites reported that Step-It was a visibly cheaper product than adult fitness trackers with correspondingly limited features.
It is not clear whether McDonald’s will attempt to reintroduce the fitness trackers after changes have been made, or if the company will attempt to promote exercise among young people through other means.
Some doubted the concept had legs anyway. Nicole Ferry of branding firm Sullivan called the addition of fitness trackers to Happy Meals a “misplaced brand message” in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. The article noted that children would be likely to see the device as a toy rather than something to seriously encourage exercise.
Such a device would also seem to raise questions about the developmental appropriateness of fitness tracker-based exercise programs for children.
The fitness tracker isn’t the only step McDonald’s has taken to make the kid-targeted meal a little healthier. The company cut the amount of fries in the kids’ meal in half in 2011 and began offering fruit and Go-Gurt as options, according to USA Today.
- McDonald’s pulls fitness trackers from Happy Meals amid reports of rashes – USA Today
- McDonald’s serving up fitness trackers in Happy Meals – USA Today
- McDonald’s dishes out fitness trackers with Happy Meals – Wareable
- McDonald’s removes fitness tracker toy from Happy Meals – Los Angeles Times (tiered sub.)
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What can retailers learn from McDonald’s public relations crisis surrounding the fitness tracker and promotions aimed at children? Will this negatively affect McDonald’s attempt to rebrand itself as healthy?
Poll
BrainTrust
Bob Amster
Principal, Retail Technology Group
Adrian Weidmann
Managing Director, StoreStream Metrics, LLC
I usually have strong opinions on retail technology and this hiccup of McDonald’s has little or nothing to do with technology but there is a lesson learned from technology that is very applicable here. Before one starts handing out things like toys or wearables to children one must run exhaustive tests to determine things like safety, durability and accuracy (but mostly safety). It appears that not all of these were thoroughly tested. The complaints according to the introduction didn’t come from marketing people questioning the effectiveness of the campaign. The complaints came from parents that said that the watches were irritants.
You can’t play with the well-being of children. That is sacred ground to any parent. If you don’t believe me, ask the toy industry. This may have negative repercussions, but I don’t think that the repercussions will have so much to do with healthfulness as it will with safety.
Is this really a public relations crisis? McDonald’s put a device in Happy Meals that may cause skin irritation. When this was discovered, the device was pulled. In the history of Happy Meals this has happened before, and the company’s bottom line has not been effected. This event is not going to negatively impact the company or its efforts to move towards healthier offerings.
Max is right. No biggie. I’m a little surprised McDonald’s didn’t check out the wrist irritation issue more carefully — it’s been a thorny issue for several vendors of these fitness tracking devices, resulting in refunds/returns.
The issue is not that McDonald’s fitness trackers may have caused a skin irritation. It is that it may have caused it on children. We are hard-wired to be extremely protective about our children and react far more strongly to something happening like this to them than we are to ourselves or other adults. As Bob stated, the failure was to do sufficient testing to ensure that the devices were safe.
McDonald’s response was very quick and appropriate. It will remain to be seen if it has any significant negative implications on the company. My expectation is that the speed with which McDonald’s acted will minimize the impact, but hopefully ensure that they do more extensive testing in the future.
Good direction. Fix it and try again. I wonder if these McDonald’s fitness trackers deleted the part about tracking fat and calories …
The fitness trackers were a nice try, and I applaud McDonald’s for the idea and for removing them quickly when a problem came to their attention. As to them being a “visibly cheaper product than adult fitness trackers,” well, if not, how could they afford to give them away as part of Happy Meals? Finally, for the parents who are seriously worried about a minor skin irritation, they might want to spend some time thinking about the man-made environmental catastrophes that are upcoming, and pressing governments to try to stave those off, as they will be more than a little “irritating” for their kids in a few years.
Crisis? Hardly. The company received a few complaints and reacted appropriately.
The bigger problem — if there’s a “problem” at all — was introducing them in the first place. I have to go along with the critics who saw this as reducing fitness to the level of gimmickry. It’s not so much that the recipients were too young and would see this as a toy — though that may be true — it’s more that fitness is a lifestyle that needs to be integrated into people’s lives. It’s not something some retailer brings along at lunch as a seasonal promotion.
McD’s brand issues are more basic: it’s not that the food is “unhealthy” per se, it’s that it’s unhealthy consumed at the levels necessary for a company to be profitable that has too many stores.
Given the experience of McDonald’s with toys in happy meals, I am surprised their quality control would miss the mark on product testing. Part of the problem may be that small toys is a more mature category, therefore more testing and standards have been done, while the fitness tracker category is still very new in comparison. I am not sure this is a PR crisis at the same level as like what Chipotle is facing. An embarrassment for sure, but I think McDonald’s will recover in the long run.