Further down the road with McDonald's Happy Meals, Hummers and hybrids

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Last month, you may remember, McDonald's restaurants offered toy Hummers in their Happy Meals. This got some people a bit angry, and Enviroblog put up a McDonald's parody website that allowed visitors to make their own McDonald's sign (that's where the graphic for this post comes from). Then, on Wednesday, McDonald's VP Bob Langert wrote on the company's Corporate Responsibility Blog a response to the Hummer/Happy Meal ruckus. His main point: "Looked at through children's eyes, the miniature Hummers are just toys, not vehicle recommendations or a source of consumer messages about natural resource conservation, greenhouse gas emissions, etc."

This caught Enviroblog's attention, and Matthew Fried wrote two posts in response (here and here). One post calls Langert's mea not culpa a bunch or nonsense and the other says that the obvious solution is to add little model hybrids to the happy meals is the way to go. While I agree tiny hybrids could make kids dig a hybrid car, I'm not sure it'll work, since as far as kids are concerned, all toy cars are arm powered, right? Plus, how does producing yet another disposable toy show off a company's green side?

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[Source: Enviroblog, Hat Tip to Matthew Fried]


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