Subject:
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Re: McDonald's, LEGO and Ethics
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 9 Sep 1999 19:02:46 GMT
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Viewed:
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287 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher Tracey writes:
> I came back from vacation this week and saw the news about the McD's
> Drive-through promotional kit and hit an ethical dilemma. I used to be(still
> am?) an anti-McDonalds activist. I sat outside restaurants passing out fliers
> and stickers for hours when I was in college. Then I went home and played • with
> LEGO. The happy meal promotions never really bothered me, for they usually • only
> had BASIC pieces which I already had enough of. Now i find myself in need of
> two red train window frames. What do I do?
I look at it this way. I am also not a fan of McDonalds and some of their
practices. I also can't remember the last time I ate there. On the other hand
if I were to by $75 from S@H I would not tell them to not send me the free
McDonalds set because of my feelings. Then again I wouldn't spend $75 just to
get a free set. If I do get one my feeling is that it is one less set
advertising McDonalds because I will toss the stickers and parts the set anyway
(Have to do something with the Mini-fig though I suppose?).
>
> How far will these promotions/tie-ins go? Everywhere I look nowadays products
> are advertising each other. You can barely watch a new movie nowadays without
> seeing at least one product placement within it. Maybe the same is happening • to
> LEGO. I had this dream last night that the only LEGO you could buy would be a
> 'McDonald's', an 'Exxon(or Shell?)' gas station, a 'Pizza Hut' delivery car, a
> 'Citibank' bank, a 'Dow' Chemical Plant, and a 'Monsanto' farm kit. And the
> truly scary part is LEGO is marketed to kids. Is the TLG helping to teach our
> kids to be good little consumers?
I am also fairly sick of all the cross-promotions out there. As far as
McDonalds and LEGO I think it is more a mostly Kids Toy being cross marketed
with a mostly Kids (Junk Food) restaurant. I would hope that LEGO would not
cross market with the companies you have above like 'Dow' or 'Monsanto' but
they have in the past with Exxon and Shell (two of my least favorite
companies see Alaska and South Africa respectively) so who knows? (I doubt the
chemical plant would sell very well anyway unless of course it could explode
and spread toxic goo all over Town Jr.).
I also realize that LEGO has started looking for ways to market their product
to maximise profit throught their Fitness Programme and by cross marketing they
share the cost of marketing while increasing exposure.
As an aside I think product licensing is good for LEGO (ie Star Wars and Winnie
the Pooh) I think these are both going to lead the way for the System and
Duplo lines respectively. In regards to the Star Wars models they are
considered some of the best models release by TLG in a couple of years and if
that is the trend with licensing (not cross-marketing) I am all for it.
Eric Kingsley
Remove ".nospam" when replying by E-mail
The New England LEGO Users Group
http://www.nelug.org/
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: McDonald's, LEGO and Ethics
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| (...) I'd buy the chem plant. The parts would be tres cool. And why not sell a model depicting a chemical plant? I don't see anything inherently wrong with manufacture -- I like to have stuff. Cheers, - jsproat (25 years ago, 9-Sep-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | McDonald's, LEGO and Ethics
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| I came back from vacation this week and saw the news about the McD's Drive-through promotional kit and hit an ethical dilemma. I used to be(still am?) an anti-McDonalds activist. I sat outside restaurants passing out fliers and stickers for hours (...) (25 years ago, 9-Sep-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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