At the start of January, Steve Easterbrook, the CEO of McDonalds UK, issued a statement to the Times saying that the video game industry has more to do with childhood obesity than fast food.

Easterbrook told the Times that the food and drinks industry shares responsibility, but made special mention of the popularity of games saying, they have reduced the amount of time young people spend outdoors.

He went on to say, “The issue of obesity is complex.. there’s fewer green spaces and kids are at home playing computer games on the TV when in the past they’d have been burning off energy outside.”

Steve probably thinks he’s pretty smart for knowing what all good PR experts know: redirect criticism.

But Steve forgot the first lesson that all good marketers know: It’s All Marketing.

A press statement like this says more about McDonald’s brand than all their clever commercials for the year.

Just like when Apple fired hundreds of employees at Christmas for stealing iPhone rebates. It makes a statement as to the kind of company they are.

Marketing always starts at the very beginning.. the foundation of the company or organization.

I think McDonalds could add more to their bottom line by publicly addressing this issue head on instead of deflecting the responsibility to video games.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 8:47 am and is filed under Marketing & Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.