The Old McDonalds were also about Money, just money in another way.
They were designed to be places that built positive associations with the Brand. Kids found McDonalds fun, build happy memories and help build life long customers for the brand. Parents would bring their kids as they could feed and entertain their kids. It was all about hooking kids into the brand for long term customer loyalty.
New McDonalds, as you say, are more about maximizing for short term gains, and current quater profitablilty. I think they are also a response to the modern backlash agains such blatant advertising to childern that we have seen. The McCafe theams were an attempt to target the same market segment as Starbucks. Why target kids that will impact your balance sheet in 15 years, when you can target young trendy buisness casuals that will impact your balance sheet today.
Of course the lawyers trying to limit exposure to anything that could present as an injury lawsuit also likley had a big impact on the demise of the playplace.
McDonald's was definitely more geared towards kids back in the day hence the looks. They even tried hard in the 90s to appeal more towards adults with McShakers, Arch Deluxe, etc. were designed to appeal more to adults and often flipped.
That's one major reason you had a lot of play places back then. McDonald's knew who their target audience was
I was one of those maccas kids, and I loved the shit.. all the way into my 30s...
I've not had Maccas in over 2 years now and bloody proud of it. I want to see them crash hard from their absolutely shit house customer service and product quality.
I get a huge sense of pride when I see that at dinner time their new 2 lane drive through is empty.
I imagine part of it was getting fast food to be family friendly, and one of the best ways to do that was appealing to the kids of that family.
Maybe it’s just media I’m consuming now, but I feel like there is almost zero marketing towards kids from McDonald’s these days, not sure the last time I’ve seen a happy meal commercial or advertisement for example, I still occasionally eat there and from their digital menu wouldn’t even know the happy meal still exist. And I imagine they have enough data to back all this up that it’s not the best way to extract money from their customers.
Just depressing I guess to realize that public companies are always about extracting and exploiting the customer in the most efficient way possible and have zero care about bringing any sort of joy or happiness to the world.
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u/RaHarmakis 12h ago
The Old McDonalds were also about Money, just money in another way.
They were designed to be places that built positive associations with the Brand. Kids found McDonalds fun, build happy memories and help build life long customers for the brand. Parents would bring their kids as they could feed and entertain their kids. It was all about hooking kids into the brand for long term customer loyalty.
New McDonalds, as you say, are more about maximizing for short term gains, and current quater profitablilty. I think they are also a response to the modern backlash agains such blatant advertising to childern that we have seen. The McCafe theams were an attempt to target the same market segment as Starbucks. Why target kids that will impact your balance sheet in 15 years, when you can target young trendy buisness casuals that will impact your balance sheet today.
Of course the lawyers trying to limit exposure to anything that could present as an injury lawsuit also likley had a big impact on the demise of the playplace.