Most of us are
aware that McDonald's and other fast food chains are not healthy food choices.
Yet, McDonald's has targeted minorities for many years by intentionally marketing
their unhealthy foods to low income minorities. Due to residential segregation,
McDonald's and other fast food chains have taken the opportunity to establish
most of their restaurants into poor and segregated neighborhoods where they can
sell cheap and unhealthy food choices to the low-income minority population. As
a result, many of these low-income neighborhoods suffer because of the high
consumption of fast food, which causes an increase of obesity and diabetes. Therefore,
by McDonald's marketing their cheap food to minorities they have managed to
successfully make large profits.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKMNNFguBLpiJ2WTLcpFiaba8Lt7oJ8ISRRPWLHXK1K-V_hKkSgSEMfejxnR2zQKIj95CytSpeiSOxp182d9rFvMzWqj4Z-YtLHdTt33lFuQEP5oGd3D_3Zos1yn_SJT1GWMDI_By6e9pL/s200/MMcDonalds_small.jpg)
McDonald's has successfully targeted
minorities groups through advertising. For example, I was not surprised when I
entered the Mcdonald’s website and found several links or websites that targeted
specific minority groups such as www.meencanta.com, which is targeted to the
Latin community. Other Websites include, www.myinspirasian.com that targets the
Asian community and www.mcdonalds.com/365black, which targets the African
American community.
I have also found some ads that
depict how McDonald's has targeted colored people throughout the years. If you
click on the link below you will see some ads from the 1970s, which targets
working class African American families:
I found the ad attached below very offensive because it perpetuates racial stereotypes towards African Americans
as it assumes that colored people do not know how to speak when they used the
phrase “dinnertimin’ or anytimin.”Also, the ad assumes that colored people do
not have enough money to dress up for dinner or tip at restaurants. Yet, ads
like this have successfully targeted minorities and still continue to appear in
our television screens as many of the McDonald’s commercials depict African
Americans, Latinos and Asians.
Question: Have you noticed the advertising trends that McDonald's has created to target minorities?
Absolutely! Many of Mcdonald's and some other fast food chain commercials target people of color. Often it's commercials that include hip-hop or R&B music or some sort of black, female aunty figure singing the praises of fried chicken.
ReplyDeleteThe picture you included is right on target! They specifically try to use the latest trends in pop culture to attract and identify with people of color.
Mary J Blige caught a tremendous amount of heat for a Burger King commercial she did and it was so bad, that the chain decided against releasing it to the mainstream.