Following up on the Coca-Cola anti obesity campaign, McDonald's is now offering nutritional information via QR code form on it's beverages and packages, following the healthy path companies are trying to create. This has started on McDonald's products in the United States and will continue to world wide McDonalds' through out the year.
It is another controversial brand informing consumers about the health of their product. The designs will be featured on all carry-out bags and fountain
beverage cups. These QR forms will also be communicating "brand stories" and delivering facts with a
mix of text and illustrations.
McDonald's wants to engage with customers in relevant ways and celebrate their brand. Customers will be understanding where the food came from and the origin of the beef. Customers want to know more about the food they are eating; McDonald's feels this is the most innovative and cost effective way to produce engagement with McDonald's consumers.
McDonald's feels they will have success due to their gathered consumer input on the new designs. The Global Advisory Council emphasized the importance of providing
access to nutrition information and support using the packaging to
connect customers to facts about menu items. The text is offered in 18
different languages.
Is it smart to put the QR code on the carry-out bags, as this would be after a McDonald's purchase and consumers would have already purchased their products. Is it smart for McDonalds to produce this QR form, do you think it will produce a high amount of brand engagement?
An anti-obesity ad rolled out this week from an unlikely source: Coca-Cola.
The world's biggest beverage company debuted the "Coming Together" commercial in hopes of flexing its marketing muscle in the debate over fizzy drinks and their impact on public health.
Attempting to make consumers aware of the calorie content in its fizzy drinks.
The theme ties into the company's "Live Positively" and "Open Happiness" campaigns.
The soft drink giant unveiled a campaign that will take on what it's calling "the issue of this generation." The first ad in the campaign, the 2-minute spot, notes that Coke can "play an important role" in the fight against obesity. The ad also points out that of its 650 beverages, Coca-Cola now offers 180 low- and no-calorie choices. In addition, the company has introduced smaller-portion drinks which Coke intends to have in 90% of the country by the end of the year. It's unclear whether another ad in the series will run during the Super Bowl. Coke has purchased three 30-second spots during the big game.
In the campaign, Coke cited several anti-obesity initiatives, including nutrition labeling, school beverage guidelines and Coca-Cola Troops for Fitness, which offers "military-style fitness classes like calisthenics, sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups and other fitness and nutritional techniques to families in communities most in need of wellness services."
The push comes after the Center For Science in the Public Interest has been a vocal critic of Coke, linking its soft drinks to obesity and diabetes. The beverage giant is diving face-first into the fray about sugary drinks and health, releasing a two-minute commercial, helping to solve the problem while simultaneously trying to shift some of the blame to other, unnamed foods and, perhaps most oddly, to consumers themselves. Or, as the voiceover gleefully chirps, "If you eat and drink more calories than you burn off, you'll gain weight!" Thanks for the pointer.
Michael Jacobson, executive director of the CSPI offered the following statement about the campaign on its Facebook page:
"They're trying to stem the tide of criticism by taking a page out of crisis control 101, which is to pretend like they're concerned about the issue. If they were serious, they would stop advertising full-calorie drinks, charge less for lower calorie options, and stop fighting the soda tax. They're just running feel-good ads aimed at neutralizing criticism."
What do you think of Coke's new campaign?
McDonald's is launching a new global packaging design that uses QR codes to give consumers nutritional information about their food. It is the next brand to promote informed decisions about health. Are Coke and McDonald's starting a new trend for companies?!
This year the Advertising
Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland
(BAI) received a record number of complaints. Over 2000 complaints were
received in the 12 month period.
This represents an increase from the average
1500 complaints received yearly.
The highly controversial
Paddy Power advertisement ‘Ladies Day at Cheltenham’,
topped the pole. This advertisement posed a question to its viewers to spot
whether the women in the advertisement were born female or were transgendered.
The catch line for this advertisement was “Separate the stallions from the
mares”. This video was withdrawn prior
to determination of the case, however it’s still available on Youtube.
Other advertisements that
encountered complaints were a nightclub’s Facebook campaign and billboards
opposing abortion.
As these boards have
limited scope to deal with areas such as political and religious advertising
there is likely to be reform in advertising standards this year with
investigations already in place.
This poses the question: Is the value of creating a non-traditional
“controversial advertising campaign” outweighing the traditional medium of
advertising. It certainly appears so!
Giants such as Paddy Power
revel at the idea of media attention and controversy. Power said himself that
he “makes no apology for pulling all the stops and building the brand around
gimmicks and ads to amuse people and earn media attention”.
The success attached to
such controversial campaigns is likely to increase the amount of complaints
received year on year which leaves with the question: Will advertising
standards solve this or drive further media attention?
Recent events have re-opened the debate for stricter
restrictions on gun control in America. The Government has constantly in
battles with the biggest pro-gun rallying organisation, the NRA in attempts to
tighten gun control. The second amendment of the constitution gives Americans
the right to bear arms. However, following the recent shooting in the Sandy
Hook Elementary school in Connecticut has led to protests at the NRA headquarters
near Washington DC. On top of this the White house has also spoken out against
guns. Vice President Joseph Biden is considering measures that would require
universal background checks for gun buyers and track the movement and sale of
weapons through a national database.
While the shootings in Sandy Hook has been the catalyst for
these talks mass shootings is not a new problem in America. In reality the
problem stems much deeper. Thirty-four Americans are killed every day by
firearms. Each year, on average, 100,000 Americans are shot with a gun. Of
these, over 31,000 are fatalities, 11,000 of them murders and 18,000 suicides. While
the Sandy Hook shootings was the worst of the mass shootings this year, there
was 15 more mass shootings in America in 2012. They are:
February 22, 2012—Five people were killed in at
a Korean health spa in Norcross, Georgia, when a man opened fire inside the
facility in an act suspected to be related to domestic violence.
February 26, 2012—Multiple gunmen began firing
into a nightclub crown in Jackson, Tennessee, killing one person and injuring
20 others.
February 27, 2012—Three students at Chardon High
School in rural Ohio were killed when a classmate opened fire.
March 8, 2012—Two people were killed and seven
wounded at a psychiatric hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when a gunman
entered the hospital with two semiautomatic handguns and began firing.
March 31, 2012—A gunman opened fire on a crowd
of mourners at a North Miami, Florida, funeral home, killing two people and
injuring 12 others.
April 2, 2012—A 43-year-old former student at
Oikos University in Oakland, California, walked into his former school and killed
seven people, “execution-style.” Three people were wounded.
April 6, 2012—Two men went on a deadly shooting
spree in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shooting black men at random in an apparently
racially motivated attack. Three men died and two were wounded.
May 29, 2012—A man in Seattle, Washington,
opened fire in a coffee shop and killed five people and then himself.
July 9, 2012—At a soccer tournament in
Wilmington, Delaware, three people were killed, including a 16-year-old player
and the event organizer, when multiple gunmen began firing shots, apparently
targeting the organizer.
July 20, 2012—James Holmes enters a midnight
screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opens fire with a semi-automatic weapon;
twelve people are killed and fifty-eight are wounded.
August 5, 2012—A white supremacist and former
Army veteran shot six people to death inside a Sikh temple in suburban
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before killing himself.
August 14, 2012—Three people were killed at
Texas A&M University when a 35-year-old man went on a shooting rampage; one
of the dead was a police officer.
September 27, 2012—A 36-year-old man who had
just been laid off from Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
entered his former workplace and shot five people to death, and wounded three
others before killing himself.
October 21, 2012—45-year-old Radcliffe Frankin
Haughton shot three women to death, including his wife, Zina Haughton, and
injured four others at a spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin, before killing himself
December 11, 2012—A 22-year-old began shooting
at random at a mall near Portland, Oregon, killing two people and then himself.
December 14, 2012—Adam Lanza murders a reported
twenty-six people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, including
twenty children, before killing himself.
This highlights that the problem is bigger than any one
event. There must be some action taken to try to help prevent such atrocities
happening in the future. The NRA feels that the guns aren’t the problem and that
the problem lies with the mentally unstable using them. But the guns ended up
in their hands due the general availability of guns. You can go into Walmart
and buy assault rifles along with your weekly grocery shop. There seems to be
something wrong with that picture. But even some members of the NRA are finally
identifying with this as Virginia Senator Mark Warner who has been awarded the
NRA's highest member rating, has said “enough is enough. We all need to come to the table and end up
with appropriate restriction.” A Gallup poll released recently showed that 58
per cent of Americans now support new gun-control laws, up from 43 per cent in
2011. It’s good to see such a jump but these restrictions need to be put in
place soon to help prevent such events happening in the future.
The NRA has to realise that their proposed solution of
people carrying more firearms for protection is not the way forward. However,
this just doesn’t make sense to me you don’t combat an addiction with more heroin,
Alcoholism with more drink so why would you try to combat shootings with more
guns? They propose that there should be armed guards in all schools. Really
what needs to be done is to impose stricter regulations on the purchasing of
guns. An in-depth background check for each potential buyer including a mental
health evaluation should be imposed. As proposed by the vice president there
should be more diligent tracking on the movement and sale of weapons through a
national database. These restrictions along with others could help to prevent
the guns falling into the wrong hands. Hopefully some good can come from the
Sandy Hook shootings in the form of new gun laws to help to prevent such mass
shootings from happening again in the future. The time for change is now.
