Arch Rivals: Unboxing the History of the McDonald's Happy Meal

By jake rossen | apr 17, 2020.

The McDonald's Happy Meal has a murky history.

Bob Bernstein was getting annoyed with his son. It was the mid-1970s, and Bernstein, an advertising executive based in Kansas City, watched as 10-year-old Steve applied the same ritualistic approach to his breakfast. Each morning, Steve would pour himself a bowl of cereal then sit at the table staring at the cereal box. He read the front, the back, and the sides, over and over again.

When his father asked him about this seemingly peculiar routine, Steve explained that “It’s just something to do.”

Bernstein realized Steve was no outlier. Unlike adults, who prefer to socialize and chat, kids liked looking at something while they ate. He kept this lesson in mind when McDonald’s tasked him with developing a child-friendly meal package that would hopefully entice younger consumers into eating at the restaurant more often.

By 1979, Bernstein’s Happy Meal was being rolled out nationally, and would go to become an indelible part of the fast food franchise’s business model. Tucked into a cardboard box full of illustrations, games, and puzzles was a complete meal, plus a toy.

But Bernstein’s claim of sole Happy Meal authorship has been hotly debated over the decades. In fact, no fewer than four entities, including one Guatemalan franchisee and one pioneering burger joint, have made a convincing argument that they, not Bernstein, were responsible for this contribution to popular and gastronomic culture.

In the early 1970s, McDonald’s didn’t have an organized outreach program for marketing to children. While the fictional McDonaldland and characters like Mayor McCheese and Grimace appeared in commercials, the actual menu wasn’t particularly kid-friendly. Parents and employees were to forced to watch helplessly as younger customers gave slapdash orders, cobbling together a meal from the menu. It exasperated adults, who wanted to get in and out more quickly, as well as restaurant franchisees, who felt the company could be doing more to attract kids.

McDonald's wasn't always marketing directly to kids. That changed in the 1970s.

The company asked Cleveland, Ohio, advertising expert Joe Johnston to research the problem; he came up with the idea of a sack that had activities on the packaging. But a bigger influence for McDonald’s was one of their biggest fast-food competitors, Burger Chef. In 1973, the burger chain introduced its Fun Meal, a cardboard box with games, riddles, and comic strips that housed a burger, fries, a sugary treat, and a soda. There was also frequently a toy or small vinyl record inside. In 1978, Burger Chef had even scored big with a license for a Star Wars Fun Meal, possibly the first example of a major movie tie-in with a fast food kid’s item.

The Fun Meal definitely pre-dates Bernstein’s assertion that he came up with the Happy Meal in 1975 or 1976, which was when he had been assigned the task by McDonald’s St. Louis regional advertising manager Dick Brams. In fact, Paul Schrage, the senior vice president of McDonald’s, was aware of the Fun Meal and so was Brams. It was Brams who directed Bernstein to come up with a way for McDonald’s to offer a menu option just for kids.

Whether Bernstein knew about the Fun Meal or simply used his son’s cereal box habits to inform his choices is unclear: In 2019, Bernstein told the Chicago Tribune that he had already been working on a design for a kid-friendly menu item when Brams contacted him. What we do know is that Bernstein developed a pre-sorted kid’s meal that was served in a cardboard box featuring puzzles, jokes, and games. (Bernstein trademarked the Happy Meal name, though he later transferred it to McDonald’s for $1.)

After two years of market testing in cities like Kansas City, Phoenix, and Denver in 1977 and 1978, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal to the rest of America in 1979. Each box, which had a circus wagon theme, came with a hamburger or cheeseburger, fries, cookies, and a soft drink. Inside the $1.15 box was a “special prize” that was one of several novelty items. Kids could find a McDoodler stencil, a McWrist wallet, an ID bracelet, a puzzle lock, a spinning top, or a McDonaldland character eraser. Later that year, the company entered into its first Happy Meal licensing agreement, issuing a Happy Meal tie-in for the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture . Happy Meals have been a perpetual presence at McDonald’s ever since.

To Bernstein’s chagrin, Brams’s death in 1988 brought with it reports that Brams was the “father” of the Happy Meal. In fact, Bernstein had been given a bronze Happy Meal in acknowledgment of his efforts the previous year. He gently disputed the claim, saying that Brams became involved with the Happy Meal only after it had been conceptualized. Certainly, the two could have differing viewpoints on how much each brought to the assignment of creating a marketing strategy for kids.

But any combination of Brams and Bernstein leaves out one crucial contribution in the Happy Meal timeline: the work of Yolanda Fernandez de Cofiño, a onetime Guatemalan McDonald’s operator and now president of McDonald’s Guatemala, and the individual McDonald’s credits for being the originator of the Happy Meal.

Yolanda's husband, José María Cofiño, founded the first McDonald’s in Guatemala in 1974. Yolanda noticed that customers, particularly younger ones, didn’t have a full understanding of how McDonald’s labeled their food. A kid might order a Big Mac not knowing it was a substantial burger.

To solve the problem, Yolanda created Ronald’s Menu in 1977. It was a way of designating a fun food order for children and consisted of a burger, fries, soda, and a sundae. Yolanda added a toy or novelty item that she had purchased at a local market. However, Yolanda’s idea didn’t include an illustrated box; Ronald’s Menu was served on a tray.

Yolanda claimed she presented the idea of the kid’s menu during a McDonald’s marketing conference in Chicago in 1977, the same year the company began market-testing Bernstein’s Happy Meal in select cities. In 1982, the company gave her a silver Ronald McDonald statue for developing the Happy Meal as well as raising the brand’s profile among children.

It seems as though McDonald’s was faced with a key problem—marketing to kids—and that several people had a similar approach as to how best to address it. While Yolanda conceived of offering a toy with a meal, it was Bernstein who was conceptualized the McDonald’s Happy Meal packaging, and it was Brams who stayed busy securing toy deals for the Happy Meal in the years to come.

Happy Meals have become part of popular culture.

Naturally, Burger Chef had a different interpretation. In 1979, shortly before the Happy Meal was scheduled to roll out nationally, the company sued McDonald’s for $5.5 million for infringing on their Fun Meal idea. The lawsuit fizzled out, however, and the ailing Burger Chef franchise was eventually absorbed by Hardee’s in 1982.

By 2017, McDonald’s was selling an average of 3.2 million Happy Meals daily, which have been stuffed over the years with everything from Transformers to Teenie Beanie Babies , which were greeted with high consumer demand in 1996. Collectors covet original Happy Meal toys and particularly the boxes, which were frequently thrown away and consequently became valuable when found intact.

Who was responsible for those boxes? History has a few answers. In all likelihood, McDonald’s took note of Burger Chef’s Fun Meal and wanted to create something similar. Bernstein shaped that notion into the Happy Meal around the same time Yolanda was offering a value menu option to kids. Like McDonald’s itself, which was opened by Richard and Maurice McDonald but brought to new heights by Ray Kroc , everyone had something to contribute.

16 photos that show how the McDonald's Happy Meal has evolved over the last 41 years

  • McDonald's introduced its Happy Meal in the US in 1979.
  • Since then, the children's meal and toys have become a staple for the giant fast-food brand.
  • Over the years,  McDonald's has worked to provide healthier options for kids by reducing calories, saturated fat, and sugar in Happy Meals.
  • Some McDonald's locations abroad have also pledged to pull plastic toys in order to be more sustainable.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Insider Today

Happy Meals have been a staple at McDonald's for as long as many of us can remember, but they haven't always been the centerpiece of the fast-food chain's children's menu.

The Happy Meal was introduced in 1979, more than 20 years after McDonald's was founded in 1955. After McDonald's employee Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño created "Menu Ronald," which combined a hamburger, small fries, and a small sundae specifically for young customers in Guatemala, the company's advertising executive Bob Bernstein brought the idea stateside and swapped out ice cream for toys.

Since then, McDonald's has collaborated with movies, TV shows, toy chains, and more to bring treats to every child who orders a Happy Meal.

Parents and health advocates have frequently voiced concern with the nutritional value of Happy Meals. The brand has offered some healthier options for kids by reducing calories, saturated fat, and sugar in Happy Meals, and it has promised to further cut the meals' calories in the next couple of years. The brand is also considering how it can evolve to be more sustainable when it comes to the toys included in every Happy Meal.

Here's how the McDonald's Happy Meal has evolved over time.

Happy Meals have been a staple at McDonald's for nearly 40 years, but they weren't the fast-food chain's first foray into providing offerings specifically for kids.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

Before McDonald's introduced the Happy Meal, locations in Canada offered a "Treat of the Week" for children, which gave young diners a small toy or trinket with their regular menu orders.

The original idea for the Happy Meal is said to have come from a McDonald's employee in Guatemala named Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

In the mid-1970s, Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño developed the "Menu Ronald," which combined a hamburger, small fries, and a small sundae specifically for kids. She ultimately caught the attention of McDonald's executives in the US.

McDonald's credits advertising executive Bob Bernstein with the idea of the Happy Meal.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

Although a St. Louis marketing manager for McDonald's is often dubbed the "father of the Happy Meal," McDonald's credits Bernstein with the idea to include toys with a children's meal after hearing about Fernandez de Cofiño's "Menu Ronald."

McDonald's rolled out the first Happy Meal in the US in 1979.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

McDonald's first Happy Meal showed a circus theme. According to Time , the meals — which included a burger, fries, cookies, and a soft drink — came with one of a number of small toy options, like a "McDoodler" stencil or "McWrist" wallet.

Later that year, the brand teamed up with "Star Trek" for its first major film partnership.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

TV commercials promised kids a "Star Trek prize" with every McDonald's Happy Meal, according to USA Today .

Chicken McNuggets were added as a Happy Meal option in 1983.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

According to USA Today , many diners in the 1980s were looking to reduce their fat intake and thus preferred to eat chicken instead of red meat. McDonald's thought that kids and parents might like an option to eat chicken as well.

McDonald's introduced milk as an option in the late 1980s.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

The fast-food brand has continually updated its Happy Meal food and beverage offerings since its inception, as USA Today points out.

The first Disney-themed Happy Meal came out in 1987. The meals have since featured beloved characters like Mickey Mouse and his crew.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

As Time notes, all the dogs from the Disney movie "101 Dalmatians" have been featured as a Happy Meal toy.

Characters from various movies, TV shows, and toy series have graced Happy Meal bags for decades.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

According to Mental Floss , the mini Furby and Minion toys are some of the most valuable Happy Meal toys that have been sold on eBay.

No McDonald's Happy Meal toy was more popular than Ty's Teenie Beanie Babies.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

In 1997, McDonald's began including a smaller version of Ty's classic Beanie Babies in its Happy Meals. After seeing success with the toy promotion, McDonald's offered the stuffed animals in Happy Meals once every year until 2000, according to Time .

As the new millennium began, McDonald's faced pressure to promote health consciousness with its Happy Meals.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

In 2004, McDonald's implemented the first significant health changes to its Happy Meal offerings. Kids could now order reduced-fat regular and chocolate milk and apple juice as an alternative to soda, while apple slices replaced traditional cookies for dessert.

The following year, McDonald's began printing nutritional information on Happy Meal boxes, according to USA Today .

In 2016, McDonald's tested a breakfast Happy Meal.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

According to USA Today , the brand looked to capitalize on the success it saw from serving breakfast all day by extending the offer to younger customers.

Two years later, McDonald's removed chocolate milk and cheeseburgers from its Happy Meal menu.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

CNBC reported that, as critics continued to link childhood obesity to Happy Meals, McDonald's took chocolate milk and cheeseburgers off its Happy Meal menu items , although both are still available by request.

McDonald's says it has committed to making its Happy Meals healthier in the future.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

As NPR reported, the chain has promised that at least 50% of Happy Meals will have 600 or fewer calories  while also cutting sodium, saturated fat, and added sugar by 2022.

Today, McDonald's has its own cartoon character modeled after the iconic red Happy Meal box.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

Ronald McDonald hasn't appeared in McDonald's commercials for a while, but a new mascot is making the rounds. Named "Happy," the red character is meant to resemble a Happy Meal box. However, not all customers were happy with the end result.

According to the Atlantic , when the character was first introduced on the McDonald's US Twitter page, patrons responded with criticism, calling the new mascot a "mistake," "terrifying," and even comparing the smiling character to "the monster that killed my uncle."

This year, McDonald's announced it would be removing plastic toys from Happy Meals in the UK.

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

According to an article by the Independent , McDonald's pledged in March that it would be removing hard, plastic toys from Happy Meals in the UK after two schoolgirls started a petition to have them taken out.

The decision, which others are calling for in the US as well , came as a response to climate change and an effort to protect the environment.

"We care passionately about the environment and are committed to reducing plastic across our business including within our Happy Meal," Gareth Helm, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of McDonald's UK and Ireland, said in a press release.

The change will go into effect in 2021 and the plastic toys will be replaced by a soft toy, a paper-based toy, or a small book.

  • THEN AND NOW: 35 photos that show how famous fast-food company logos have changed over time
  • 10 fast-food menu changes that outraged customers
  • THEN AND NOW: Photos show how McDonald's has changed through the years, from its menu to its mascot
  • THEN AND NOW: How Burger King has changed through the years

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Happy Meal turns 40: McDonald’s marketing savvy has kept kids coming back for generations

Stacy Wescoe // November 18, 2019

Stacy Wescoe // November 18, 2019 //

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Evolving our Iconic Happy Meal

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

May 16, 2019

Doing Our Part to Make Balanced Meals More Accessible to Families Across the Globe

Here at McDonald’s, we’re committed to families. Whether you’re enjoying a meal in one of our restaurants or on-the-go, we want you to feel good about the options you’re feeding your family, especially when it comes to our iconic Happy Meal.

Since 2012, we’ve made changes to the U.S. Happy Meal menu in favor of a well-balanced menu, including:

  • Adding apple slices or Yoplait® Go-GURT® Low Fat Strawberry Yogurt to every Happy Meal
  • Featuring bottled water as a beverage choice and removing soda from Happy Meal Menu boards
  • Removing artificial preservatives from our Chicken McNuggets
  • Serving hamburgers withno artificial preservatives, no artificial flavors and no added colors from artificial sources. The pickle contains an artificial preservative, and customers are able to skip it if they prefer.
  • Offering every meal combination on our Happy Meal menu boards in the U.S. at 600 calories or less
  • Replacing the previous 100% apple juice served in the U.S. with Honest Kids Appley Ever After Apple Juice Drink
  • Updating our original Yoplait® Go-GURT® Low Fat Strawberry Yogurt with a  brand-new recipe  that contains no artificial preservatives and still has 25% less sugar than the leading kids’ yogurt*

We are proud to announce that through these changes – and our work with the  Alliance for a Healthier Generation  – we’ve served more than 6.4 billion fruit, vegetable, low-fat dairy and water options in Happy Meals since 2013. And while this progress is great, we’re continuing to push ourselves to provide well-balanced meals with the same craveable and delicious taste our customers love. Just last year we recommitted to supporting families by launching our Global Happy Meal Goals, which included nutrition criteria for Happy Meals for the first time.

For more information about the ingredients and nutrition in our U.S. Happy Meals, visit  Make 'Em Smile with a Happy Meal .

*Yoplait® GO-GURT® at McDonald’s has 5g of sugar per 2oz. The leading kids’ yogurt has 8g per 2oz.

McDonald's debuted the Happy Meal nearly 40 years ago. Here's how it's changed

Few things are more iconic than a McDonald's Happy Meal. The bright red box with its golden handles has become a fast food staple since it was first introduced nearly 40 years ago.

However, the Happy Meal fell out of fashion with some advertising partners in the mid-2000's. A combination of rising childhood obesity rates and concern over calorie-laden children's meals at fast food restaurants led companies like Disney to part ways with the brand.

McDonald's has tinkered with its Happy Meal, overhauling the food inside the box and serving up healthier food options for kids. The Golden Arches now offers selections that are lower in calories, sodium, saturated fat and sugar.

These changes led Disney to rekindle its relationship with McDonald's in February, more than a decade after it severed ties with the burger brand.

More: You're not imagining it. The McDonald's logo is upside down

More: McDonald's now serves fresh-beef Quarter Pounders at 25% of restaurants

More: Happy Meals will soon have Disney toys, starting with 'Incredibles 2'

This wasn't the first time McDonald's made major changes to its iconic Happy Meal. Here's a look at how McDonald's Happy Meals have evolved since 1979:

Circus Wagon

The classic kids' meal started as a gimmick, a way to lure in parents with small children for an easy-to-order lunch or dinner.

The Happy Meal let kids choose what they wanted to eat, giving them a sense of autonomy, and helped McDonald's brand itself as family-friendly fare.

This first iteration of the Happy Meal was the Circus Wagon box, which came with either a cheeseburger or hamburger as well as fries, cookies, a drink and a toy.

Chicken McNuggets were added a few years later as an alternative to red meat. In the '80s, diners sought to decrease the amount of fat and cholesterol they consumed and demand increased for leaner meats and poultry.

Truth be told, the Happy Meal isn't most well-known for its food. Instead, it's often the trinkets inside that have gained the most notoriety. Ask anyone who grew up eating McDonald's and they can instantly tell you what the most coveted Happy Meal toy of their generation was.

Early on the toys included in the Happy Meal were little trinkets — stencils, puzzle locks and spinning tops. However, those toys got an upgrade over the years due to several strategic partnerships.

The "Star Trek" meal was the first of McDonald's major film partnerships. Television ads enticed parents to bring their kids into their local McDonald's to get a kids' meal with a special "Star Trek prize."

This trend continued as McDonald's teamed with Disney and Mattel's Hot Wheels and Barbie to its list of partners.

Kids love to collect. Their need to accumulate every iteration of their favorite show, movie or character has been and continues to be one of the strangest drivers of growth in the toy industry. Offering up beloved characters from the House of Mouse and already popular toy properties was a way to lure in families multiple times over the course of the limited release of a themed meal.

So, when McDonald's hopped on the Ty's Beanie Baby trend in the '90s, it was no surprise its customers reacted with such fervor. In 1997, McDonald's began handing out Teenie Beanie Babies in its Happy Meal and soon found lines of people out the door hoping to get their hands on the collectible. These miniature stuffed bears can still be found on eBay with price tags between $500 and $7,000.

Healthier options

Not long after the Teenie Beanie Babies craze, McDonald's found itself at the center of a growing debate. Childhood obesity rates were rising and there were concerns about calorie-laden kids' meals at fast food chains. Some even called for toys to be banned from meals meant for kids.

McDonald's had already begun adding to its kids' meal offerings. It introduced milk as an option in the late 1980s. But by 2004, it opted to serve reduced fat milk, in regular and chocolate flavors, and apple juice as alternatives to sugary soft drinks. Cookies were swapped out for apple slices. Eventually, Gogurt yogurt tubes would also become an option.

But critics weren't appeased, even when the chain added nutritional information to its Happy Meal packaging in 2005.

More recently, McDonald's revamped its selections so that they are now lower in calories, sodium, saturated fat and sugar . This meant ditching cheeseburgers and chocolate milk from the kids' menu.

While these items are still available for purchase, McDonald's will not list them on the menu, thus making it less likely that these items will be ordered, it said.

This move brought Disney back into the fold in February, just in time for the entertainment giant to promote the highly anticipated "Incredibles 2," which is due out in June.

"The Incredibles" has become a cult favorite, especially among millennials, who are starting to have families of their own and could be drawn into McDonald's for these promotions.

© CNBC  is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

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McDonald's Commitments

Healthier Generation is collaborating with McDonald’s to increase families' access to healthier food and beverage options. As the largest quick-serve restaurant chain in the world, McDonald's has the distribution system and marketing power to promote healthier products on a scale that could dramatically improve the consumption patterns of millions of children and families.

2018 Global Happy Meal Goals Commitment

In 2018, Healthier Generation and McDonald’s announced that they were furthering their original collaboration (see 2013 commitment below) with new, bold steps  to serve more fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains, lean protein and water. The five new Global Happy Meal Goals , which McDonald’s has pledged to achieve by 2022, include global nutrition criteria to further reduce kids’ consumption of calories, fat, salt, and sugar from Happy Meal bundles.

Goal #1: Offer Balanced Meals: On the Happy Meal menu in the United States, McDonald’s will:

  • List only the following entrée choices: Hamburger, 4-piece and 6-piece Chicken McNuggets
  • Replace the small French fries with kids-sized fries in the 6-piece Chicken McNugget meal, which decreases the calories and sodium in the fries serving by half
  • Reformulate chocolate milk to reduce the amount of added sugar
  • Add bottled water as a beverage choice on Happy Meal menu boards

Goal #2: Simplify Ingredients: Continue efforts to remove artificial flavors and added colors from artificial sources, and reduce artificial preservatives. 

Goal #3: Be Transparent with Happy Meal Nutrition Information: Make nutrition information available for Happy Meal bundle offerings on McDonald’s owned websites and mobile apps used for ordering where they exist and as technologies change over time.

Goal #4: Market Responsibly: Ensure all Happy Meal bundles advertised to children will meet McDonald’s Global Happy Meal Nutrition Criteria (as stated in Goal #1) and continue to meet existing local/regional advertising pledges with respect to marketing to children, whichever is strictest.

Goal #5:  Increase Purchase of Foods and Beverages that Contain Recommended Food Groups in Happy Meals: Use innovative strategies to help serve more foods and beverages containing fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains, lean protein and/or water within Happy Meals

2018 Global Happy Meal Goals Commitment Progress Reports

  • 2023 Progress Report Infographic
  • 2020 Progress Report Infographic

2013 Commitment

In 2013, Healthier Generation negotiated an unprecedented voluntary agreement  with McDonald’s to increase their provision and marketing of fruits, vegetables, and healthier beverages, including removing soda from Happy Meal menu boards.

A five year progress report   on the commitment showed that McDonald's had met or exceeded its targets for the number of countries fully implementing each of the five components of the commitment. As a result: 

  • Over 6.4 billion fruit, vegetable, low-fat dairy and water items were served in Happy Meals across the world.
  • In the United States, between 2013 and 2018, there was a 15 percentage point increase in the share of Happy Meals served with milk, water or juice.
  • Over 3.4 billion fruit, low-fat dairy and water items have been served in U.S. Happy Meals since 2013.
  • Over 250 million sides of apple slices were served in the U.S. in 2018 alone.

2013 Commitment Progress Reports

  • Markets at a Glance
  • Infographic
  • Detailed Methodology
  • 2014 Progress Report

Evaluating Our Impact

Healthier Generation’s work with McDonald’s is rooted in the belief that collaboration between non-profits and the business sector can drive powerful change. To measure the impact of this collaboration, McDonald’s committed to participate in an independent process to regularly measure and verify the progress of its efforts.

Read a  Q&A with third-party evaluator Keybridge  about measuring the impact of these commitments.

  • C-Store Collaboration
  • McDonald’s & the Alliance for a Healthier Generation: 2016 Report on Progress
  • McDonald’s& the Alliance for a Healthier Generation: Five-Year Report on 2013 Commitments
  • Healthcare Innovation
  • Beverage Calories Initiative

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business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

Who created the McDonald’s Happy Meal? 40 years later, the answer is complicated.

CHICAGO – Summer of 2019 is a summer of monumental anniversaries, reminders that we were ambitious once (the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing), and not always as cynical as we’ve become (the 50th anniversary of Woodstock). There are lessons in systemic cruelty (the 100th anniversary of the 1919 Chicago race riots), and also studies in self-determination (the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall demonstrations for gay rights) and, later this year, genuine change (the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall).

But how do we think about the 40th anniversary of the McDonald’s Happy Meal?

Monumental? Game-changing? Cynical?

All of the above?

The object itself is ephemeral. Just cardboard and plastic and some loose french fries. There will be no CNN documentaries or coffee-table books that explore the meaning of the Happy Meal. And yet, possibly, the Happy Meal has played a larger part in your everyday life than the space race, a music festival in upstate New York or the decline of Soviet communism.

We could celebrate Happy Meals.

The past decade has seen McDonald’s introduce leaner versions, with apple slices and fewer fries per box; according to the Chicago-based company, more than 50% of Happy Meal customers in the United States now request milk, juice or water instead of a soft drink. There’s also a collector’s market for Happy Meal toys, reminding us of the value of nostalgia. Meanwhile, tucked inside that nostalgia, we also see a cultural artifact that, for many children – especially Gen Xers – offered a first bit of autonomy, their own food.

In a statement, Silvia Lagnado, McDonald’s global chief marketing officer, said: “Thanks to the Happy Meal, most adults associate McDonald’s with special childhood memories.” She added the Happy Meal “created an incredibly valuable heritage in playfulness and fun.”

Or we could also bemoan Happy Meals.

In the late 1970s, it helped to cement the parameters of what was permissible when fast-food restaurants marketed to children. Later, it became Exhibit A for nutritionists eager to identify the causes of childhood obesity; indeed, the healthier Happy Meals of today are a response (several decades late) to the criticisms of the Happy Meal from the early 1980s. You might even say the Happy Meal – along with play dates, the end of free-range children and instructions for Legos – was one more small step to formatting childhood.

But there’s an even larger existential question here.

Who created the Happy Meal?

Go to the McDonald’s website and, among an extensive accounting of its milestones, there’s no Happy Meal. There are notes on the birth of Egg McMuffins (1975), the opening of Hamburger University in Elk Grove, Illinois (1961). They recognize the (Canadian) creation of the McFlurry (1995) and the launch of all-day breakfast (2015). But no Happy Meal, and considering how much Happy Meals contribute to the identity of McDonald’s – the company says 25% of its business is from families, and the data firm Sense360 once figured that, for a select period of 2017, McDonald’s was selling 3.2 million Happy Meals a day, creating $10 million in revenue daily – it’s an odd oversight.

Or just honest.

Because the creation of the Happy Meal was somewhat nebulous. It’s a portrait of far-flung creative people, recognizing the need for the same thing at roughly the same time.

In the late 1970s, I went on a field trip with my class to the kitchen of a McDonald’s in Rhode Island. We toured the grounds and learned how hamburgers were made, we heard about the founder Ray Kroc, then assembled for a lunch of Happy Meals. That last part had been the promised centerpiece of the visit, the part of the trip that everyone in class understood would be waiting at the end of a long lecture about the responsibilities of the fry operator. Happy Meals were a big deal in the late ’70s. Months earlier, when the Happy Meal debuted, I rode my bike to a McDonald’s 2 miles from home. The commercials were all over Saturday morning TV. I needed an eraser shaped like Grimace. But my Happy Meal prize was always a top or a stencil.

So I got a lot of Happy Meals, and I got chubby.

Of course, turning children into regulars at McDonald’s was the whole point. Joe Johnston, a Tulsa author and artist, was a Cleveland adman in the early 1970s. “There was a sense (among McDonald’s franchise owners) that kids didn’t want to come to McDonald’s. There was a feeling McDonald’s was losing its connection to kids. There was no place to sit. Families took food to their cars. Kids were like, ‘This sucks, I want crayons.’ No one at McDonald’s was addressing it.” He said the company gave him $700 to research ways to entice young families and his agency came up with a McDonald’s “Fun Meal.” It was essentially a sack with puzzles and activities on the packaging. No toys. “But toys, we learned, were key. Franchises were innovating. But they couldn’t afford millions of toys.”

Actually, many of the cultural items we associate with McDonald’s didn’t start at the company’s headquarters (then in Oak Brook) but in local franchises around the country.

Shamrock Shakes, started in Connecticut.

Big Macs in Pittsburgh.

Filet-O-Fish in Cincinnati.

By the mid-’70s, the idea of a children’s meal box (with a Cracker Jack-like prize) had been floating around the fast-food industry. Paul Schrage, now-retired senior executive vice president of McDonald’s – he OK’d the Happy Meal to go national – says bluntly: “The idea (for the Happy Meal) came from our competitor, Burger Chef, which had been offering gifts to kids. Our regional ad manager in St. Louis, Dick Brams, was aware of this and thought it was a nifty idea and he contacted a guy in Kansas City named Bob Bernstein.” Of course, it’s more complicated than that: Bernstein, whose advertising firm handled McDonald’s restaurants in the Midwest and Southwest (and still does), had been working already on a kids meal. He said: “I came up with the Happy Meal, in 1975, as I watched my son at the breakfast table reading his cereal box. He did it every morning. I thought, we make a box for McDonald’s that holds a meal and gives kids things to do.”

At a meeting with franchise owners, Bernstein heard that “moms needed something simple to handle” and restaurant owners wanted to streamline the often chaotic ordering of kids’ food. So he began trademarking cups, plates, lids as “Happy Cups,” “Happy Plates,” etc. He made a deal with Keebler for cookies; he hired children’s book illustrators and graphic designers to work on a box.

He wasn’t the first.

As early as 1973, the Indianapolis-based Burger Chef had been offering its own Fun Meals that included a toy. (Burger Chef even had “Star Wars” boxes in 1978.) According to Meredith Williams, a Joplin, Missouri, collector of fast-food ephemera who wrote two guides to collecting Happy Meals, individual McDonald’s franchises around the country had tested similar concepts, from trick-or-treat packages and Mayor McCheese bags.

Still, Bernstein perfected the idea, Schrage said.

Before McDonald’s agreed to make the Happy Meal a national product, Bernstein’s Happy Meals were being tested and advertised for a couple of years in Kansas City, Phoenix and Denver. The ad executive even trademarked the Happy Meal name, then later transferred it to McDonald’s for $1. (He said he eventually received a $5,000 bonus for his creation).

During the summer of 1979, McDonald’s premiered the Happy Meal nationally. The first boxes were circus wagons. The first toys were tops, stencils, wallets, puzzles and erasers. And initially, meals included a hamburger or cheeseburger, fries, a soft drink and cookies.

So, there you go – Bob Bernstein of Kansas City, inventor of the Happy Meal.

He still keeps a bronze Happy Meal in his office, awarded by McDonald’s in 1987 – the inscription thanks him for “for bringing the Happy Meal, a bold idea,” to the company.

But then it gets weird.

When Dick Brams died at 45 in 1988, the former McDonald’s employee, a popular figure in Midwest advertising, was celebrated at his funeral as “father of the Happy Meal.” Bernstein said it’s here that the company started to say the Happy Meal was Brams’ idea, “and that’s just not true – Dick did a lot, but after the Happy Meal had already been created.”

A 2009 touring exhibit of Happy Meal memorabilia, to mark its 30th anniversary, also identified Brams as “father of the Happy Meal.” Today, if you Google “inventor of the Happy Meal,” you are as likely to get Brams as Bernstein. When I asked a McDonald’s media contact who created the Happy Meal, the first name mentioned was Yolanda Fernandez.

She’s 84, president of McDonald’s Guatemala, and prefers to go by her husband’s last name, Cofino. Jose Maria Cofino founded the first McDonald’s in Guatemala in 1974 (he died in 1995), and in 1977, Yolanda created a “Ronald’s Menu” for the restaurant. It contained a hamburger, small fries, small Coke, small sundae. She added little toys that she bought at a local market. She packaged the whole thing on a tray – no box. “The thing is, nobody here in Guatemala really knew McDonald’s when we started,” she told me in a phone interview, “so they didn’t know what a Big Mac was. And because they really didn’t understand the name of the sandwiches, you would see a boy trying to finish a Big Mac. So I thought there should be a smaller meal, for a parent to order that a child could finish.”

She said she never asked Oak Brook executives for permission to create Ronald’s Menu, but in 1977, at a McDonald’s marketing conference in Chicago, she presented them with her idea. Bernstein said he began hearing only recently about Yolanda. He doesn’t doubt her – again, the idea was in the air – but he insists he invented the Happy Meal as we know it.

As for McDonald’s?

A media representative told me Yolanda “was the first to have this idea” of a value meal for kids. Indeed, in 1982, five years before Bernstein received his bronze Happy Meal for bringing the Happy Meal to fruition, the company gave Yolanda a silver Ronald McDonald statue, for developing the Happy Meal, as well as helping to grow the company’s standing among children. They also credit her with developing the idea of McDonald’s as a ready-made location for birthday parties. Like the creation of many cultural icons, when it comes to the invention of the Happy Meal, it appears there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

The rest you mostly know.

The Happy Meal became synonymous with suburban childhoods, as well as integrated, synergistic ecosystems of intellectual property tent poles spread across robust platforms.

Rich Seidelman, of Western Springs, Illinois, worked as art director on Happy Meal TV commercials for 22 years, mostly as an employee of the Leo Burnett advertising firm. He also worked on the slapstick, surreal McDonaldland commercials of the 1970s that featured Ronald, Mayor McCheese and friends. Though both campaigns had a playful tone, “I preferred McDonaldland ads, because the Happy Meal ads were never as lighthearted. (McDonaldland ads) were kind of fantasy stories with a hamburger, but Happy Meal (ads) were about making certain (that) kids understood all about a promotional tie-in.”

One of the original television commercials for the McDonald’s Happy Meal was produced by the Bernstein Rein advertising agency.

Because the first Happy Meals initially included “such chintzy toys,” Seidelman said the advertising took pains to avoid revealing “the prizes.” But eventually, Barbie, Hot Wheels, Disney, Hello Kitty, Transformers – a Happy Meal became a vehicle for showcasing cultural franchises as shamelessly as any celebrity appearing on a late-night talk show. (Curiously enough, the first Happy Meal movie promotion, six months after the Happy Meal debuted, was for the slow and cerebral “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”)

Controversies concerning the Happy Meal – food fights, frankly – were apparent from the start. Just as the Happy Meal premiered nationally, Burger Chef sued McDonald’s for ripping off its Fun Meals; later, McDonald’s sued Burger King for ripping off Happy Meals to create Big Kids Meals. Still, the majority of controversies centered on nutritional value. In 2010, a California class-action lawsuit claimed McDonald’s used toys to unfairly entice children into eating unhealthy foods (the lawsuit was later dismissed). In 2002, New York teenagers sued McDonald’s, claiming Happy Meals contributed to their obesity.

“I remember when the Happy Meal started,” said Marion Nestle, a celebrated food policy advocate and professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. “I remember it fondly because I took my own children then to McDonald’s. It was a big deal for them. And it’s interesting, because (the Happy Meal) debuts in 1979, and between 1980 and 2000 is when obesity among children skyrockets. It’s also around then that the Federal Trade Commission is attempting to curb marketing to children, but Congress kills this and marketing (fast food on television to children) is left unregulated.

It was always about the toy

At first those toys were underwhelming plastic shrugs.

But as McDonald’s partnered with companies like Disney and Mattel, the quality of the toys improved, and as the ads warned with any given promotion, kids had a ”limited time“ to collect ’em all. By the 30th anniversary of the Happy Meal in 2009, fast food chains told the FTC that they were spending $341 million on the toys in its kids meals, which was more than half the total they spent marketing to children. And so, by the early 1990s, there were so many Happy Meal toys, it fueled a McDonald’s Collectors Club, founded outside Toledo, Ohio, by Linda Gegorski, a now-retied biology teacher and health inspector.

“For 20 years we held conventions,” she said, “and people came with toys McDonald’s only distributed regionally, which meant that you had rarities.” A collectors market grew. Collectors became friends with toy designers, traded Happy Meal prototypes. “But the boxes were worth more than the toys,” said Mike Fountaine, a retired McDonald’s franchise owner in Pennsylvania who amassed a 75,000-piece collection, including “90 percent” of all Happy Meals. “The boxes ended up in the trash, so boxes became rarer.”

Still, that flood of new toys – often mass-produced in millions, distributed globally – would help eventually slow the market, and the McDonald’s Collectors Club disbanded.

Rest assured, if you haven’t bought a Happy Meal in years, there is still a toy inside. Right now, there’s a “Toy Story 4” Happy Meal, and the toys inside are pretty sophisticated. And because McDonald’s finally recognized a need to rework its nutritional standards, there’s no cheeseburger option. The fries are even smaller than a normal order of small fries. And instead of a cookie or a molten-hot apple pie, there’s a choice of apple slices or yogurt.

Christopher J. Bryan, an assistant professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago – who recently co-authored a study to help kids avoid fast food – sees these changes as half-measures. He is not impressed. “I don’t mean to suggest there are McDonald’s executives laughing evilly somewhere trying to sell kids on poison, but that goodwill doesn’t change what is harmful to kids. It’s not even clear where blame lies now.”

Ask those who contributed to the early days of the Happy Meal if they feel any guilt about the Happy Meal, and generally they say that fast-food nutrition and marketing was less of a concern in 1979. Asked why the Happy Meal worked at all, Schrage, the retired McDonald’s executive, said it was all about adding value: “You are getting not a toy, but a Disney toy, advertised on television, maybe connected to a movie. And it all adds value and makes that (Happy Meal) more important to a kid. And that’s why it was successful.”

Depending who answers, the Happy Meal was about competition.

Or finding new audiences.

Or exploiting kids.

But the lesson is, you can’t make everyone happy.

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McDonald's Commits To More Balanced Happy Meals By 2022

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Allison Aubrey

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

A Happy Meal and McFlurry are arranged for a photograph at a McDonald's Corp. fast food restaurant in Phoenix, Ariz. The company says in the next four years, 50 percent or more of its kids meals will meet new nutrition criteria, with 600 or fewer calories per meal and caps on calories from sugar and saturated fat. Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

A Happy Meal and McFlurry are arranged for a photograph at a McDonald's Corp. fast food restaurant in Phoenix, Ariz. The company says in the next four years, 50 percent or more of its kids meals will meet new nutrition criteria, with 600 or fewer calories per meal and caps on calories from sugar and saturated fat.

Burgers and chicken nuggets are still the mainstay of the Happy Meal. But on Thursday McDonald's announced its goal to market more balanced kids meals around the globe.

The company says by the end of 2022, at least 50 percent or more of the kids meal options listed on menus will meet new global Happy Meal nutrition criteria: Meals will have 600 calories or less; no more than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat; no more than 650 mg sodium; and no more than 10 percent of calories from added sugar.

These goals build on the commitments McDonald's has made to improve options for kids. And, in many cases, these goals represent small tweaks. For instance, to reduce sugar, McDonald's locations in the U.S. have already switched to organic apple juice that is lower in sugar and calories. Now, the company plans to reformulate chocolate milk to a lower-sugar version. In addition, they will downsize the size of the fries served with the six-piece Chicken McNugget Happy Meal. Currently it comes with a standard small fry, but going forward this will change to a smaller kiddie size.

The company also says it will aim to use its size and scale to leverage innovative marketing to "help serve more fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains, lean protein and water in Happy Meals," according to the company release.

In a statement, the American Heart Association applauded McDonald's planned changes to the Happy Meal. "This is an important step in the right direction and we look forward to seeing how today's announcement will lead to kids eating fewer calories and less sugar, saturated fat and sodium," the group's CEO, Nancy Brown, said.

Not everyone is impressed by McDonald's announcement. "This is more of the same. Old tricks from an old dog," says Alexa Kaczmarski of Corporate Accountability , a watchdog group that campaigns for McDonald's to change the way it markets to children. "It doesn't matter how you dress it up, Happy Meals are vehicles for hooking kids on junk food and building brand affinity for life."

So, when will McDonald's customers see alternatives to the burgers and nuggets for kids' entrees? McDonald's is testing the waters outside the U.S.

Last month McDonald's in Italy introduced a new Happy Meal entrée called the Junior Chicken --a lean, grilled chicken sandwich. McDonald's Australia is "currently exploring new vegetable and lean protein options and McDonald's France is looking at new vegetable offerings," the company said in a statement.

"The U.S. will keep an eye on these," says Julia Braun, a registered dietitian and head of global nutrition at McDonald's. "We're committed to exploring new options."

Outside kids' meals, McDonald's has introduced vegetarian and vegan burger options in parts of Europe. "I tasted it. I enjoyed it," Braun says of the veggie burger in France.

As for plans to introduce a veggie burger in U.S. stores? Braun says "it needs to be led by the customer." The fast-food giant would need to see that the demand is there. "It's got to have mass appeal."

In announcing its new goals, McDonald's also touted its success in removing sugary soda from the Happy Meal section of menu boards. This action was taken as part of a commitment with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a group that aims to empower kids to develop lifelong healthy habits.

"From day one, Healthier Generation knew our work with McDonald's could influence broad scale improvements to meal options for kids everywhere," said Dr. Howell Wechsler, Chief Executive Officer of Alliance for a Healthier Generation in a statement. "Today's announcement represents meaningful progress."

McDonald's says since 2013, the company has tracked a 14 percent increase in the number of Happy Meals ordered with milk, juice or water. According to the company, "for the first time, more than half of Happy Meals ordered in the U.S. have included water, milk or juice as their beverage of choice."

McDonald's made Happy Meal nutrition information accessible on websites and mobile ordering apps.

McDonald’s Makes Progress with Healthier Happy Meals

McDonald's made Happy Meal nutrition information accessible on websites and mobile ordering apps.

McDonald’s progress against their 2018 Happy Meal nutrition and marketing goals is detailed today in a report released by public policy economic consulting firm Keybridge, LLC. In collaboration with Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a leading U.S. children’s health organization, McDonald’s set Global Happy Meal Goals in 2018 aiming to make balanced meals more accessible to families and children across the world.

The report concluded that between 2018–2022, McDonald’s:

  • Served more than 5.7 billion items containing fruit, vegetable, low-fat dairy, whole grain, lean protein, or water via the Happy Meal
  • Reduced average calories in Happy Meal Bundle Offerings by 6 percent, sodium by 9 percent, saturated fat by 15 percent, and added sugar by 26 percent
  • Introduced 70 new fruit, vegetable, low-fat dairy, whole grain, lean protein, and water options to the Happy Meal menu, including more than 30 fruit options
  • Removed 100 percent of artificial flavors, added colors from artificial sources, and artificial preservatives where feasible from Happy Meal Offerings
  • Promoted water, milk or juice as the beverage, and fruit, vegetable or dairy items as the side in 100 percent of Happy Meal ads
  • Made Happy Meal nutrition information accessible on websites and mobile ordering apps

All per external measurement and reporting in 20 of McDonald’s major markets, which collectively account for nearly 85 percent of global Happy Meal sales.

“The impressive results of this report prove that meaningful change is possible when you combine the global scale of a corporation like McDonald’s with the expertise of Healthier Generation,” says Kathy Higgins, chief executive officer at Alliance for a Healthier Generation. “When Healthier Generation collaborated with McDonald’s to set these goals in 2018, we could not have imagined the ways in which our world and businesses would have to adapt. Nevertheless, McDonald’s dedication and persistence toward the goals, and ultimately to families around the world, resulted in meaningful change.”

“Over the last five years, we’ve made significant improvements to our Happy Meal nutritional profile, ingredients, and marketing practices around the world, said Julia Braun, Director of Global Nutrition at McDonald’s. “As a Dietitian and Mom, I’m proud of our markets’ efforts to introduce and creatively promote fruit and vegetable offerings that are fun and accessible to kids, providing families with choices they can feel good about.”

The 2018 Global Happy Meal Goals build on McDonald’s and Healthier Generation’s longstanding relationship. McDonald’s initial set of global commitments, announced in 2013, focused on increasing families’ access to fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy and water. These commitments greatly increased the variety of side options in Happy Meal, helping introduce items such as grape tomatoes in Australia, corn cups in Taiwan, and heart-shaped carrots in Austria. In 2018, McDonald’s renewed their commitment with five new global goals to offer more nutritious meals, simplify ingredients, increase transparency with Happy Meal nutrition information, reinforce responsible marketing practices to children, and leverage innovative marketing to promote the purchase of recommended food groups in Happy Meal. As part of these commitments, markets around the world continued to introduce new, exciting sides for children and families, such as cucumber sticks in the UK, a veggie cup in China and pear slices in France.

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What a Happy Meal can tell us about business model patterns

Happy Meal is sometimes more than just a happy meal, especially if the users (kids usually), customers (parents usually), the management (McDonald) and the product development team (the franchising restaurants) are happy about the results.

This time, a simple happy meal also make the cooperations partner (Schleich) and observers (I and readers of this article) happy because we can see the combination of different business model patterns behind.

The basic business model: Franchising

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

According to Statista , McDonald franchised more than 38k restaurants world wide in 2019. This basic business model is described shortly in the St Gallen Navigator as follow:

“The franchisor owns the brand name , products , and corporate identity , and these are licensed to independent franchisees who carry the risk of local operations. Revenue is generated as part of the franchisees’ revenue and orders. The franchisees benefit from the usage of well known brands, know-how, and support.”

Cross-Selling as an extended business model

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

November 2019 Happy Meal turned 40 since its introduction. In the period of December 2020 in Barvavia Germany, McDonald cooperated with Schleich to cross-selled some toys in its happy meals, including an exclusive donkey figure. Cross-selling as a business model is described by St Gallen Navigator as followed:

“In this model, services or products from a formerly excluded industry are added to the offerings, thus leveraging existing key skills and resources. In retail especially, companies can easily provide additional products and offerings that are not linked to the main industry on which they were previously focused. Thus, additional revenue can be generated with relatively few changes to the existing infrastructure and assets, since more potential customer needs are met.”

Thanks to Happy Meal, McDonald is literally the largest toy-reseller/distributor of the world with more than 1,5 billion toys each year.

Shop-in-Shop: A “call-for-action” advertisement on the Happy-Meal box

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

My 6-year-old is curious about QR-codes. He would ask for my smartphone to scan any QR-code he comes across.

On the box of the current Happy Meal there is an Schleich-Advertisement for purchasing more figures (e.g. buy 4 figures while paying only 3 of them). If you see a bit more closer you will find another cooperation partner “ SMYTHS ” behind. No matter if you are just a fan of Schleich figures and want to collect the full set of animals, or if you are interested in buying more while paying less, once you scan and visit the SMYTHS online store, it is probably that you will pay for more than you originally wanted to, especially in the Christmas time, when people are having difficulties about how to look for suitable presents.

Shop-in-shop is another business model pattern, described in the St Gallen Navigator as follow:

“Instead of opening new branches, a partner is chosen whose branches can profit from integrating the company’s offerings in a way that imitates a small shop within another shop ( a win-win situation ). The hosting store can benefit from more attracted customers and is able to gain constant revenue from the hosted shop in the form of rent. The hosted company gains access to cheaper resources such as space , location , or workforce .”

Robin-Hood: A frequently used business model pattern with an unusual name

As described in the St Gallen Navigator, Robin-Hood means:

“The same product or service is provided to ‘ the rich ’ at a much higher price than to ‘the poor’. Thus, the main bulk of profits are generated from the wealthy customer base. Serving ‘the poor’ is not profitable per se, but creates economies of scale, which other providers cannot achieve. Additionally, it has a positive effect on the company’s image.”

My consideration of this pattern in the case of a Happy Meal was that, I can not understand how McDonalds can earn money by selling a Happy Meal at the price of 3,99€, in which a Schleich figure would cost more than 5€ on Amazon. I made a joke that I were the poor guy who benefited from the toys being sold to the riches at a much higher price. Schleich is the “Robin Hood” behind by making this possible.

My personal interpretation of the TRUTH is that:

  • Schleich is selling some old figures (at least the dinosaurs this time) from their storages. In this way the storage cost could be reduced, the storage space could be freed, the unsold and out-of-date animal figures could be turned to cash flow (for they have earned enough margin before 😛).
  • Schleich could offer these figures to McDonalds at a very low price, maybe less than 1€ so that McDonalds can still earn money from the 3,99€. Schleich could benefit from Point 1 and use these figures as advertisement (see “shop-in-shop”) for more new figures selling at higher prices.
  • It is also good for Schleich to do so in the time of global pandemic, in which the offline sales are catastrophically influenced, especially because of lock-down.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to calculate the margin behind in such a business case with the limited information available. One thing for sure, neither McDonalds, nor Schleich, nor SMYTHS is doing (or willing to do) a negative business and really plays the role as Robin Hood.

Last but not least: Lock-In

business model generation mcdonald's happy meals

Lock-In is described as follow:

“Customers are locked into a vendor’s world of products and services. Using another vendor is impossible without incurring substantial switching costs, and thus protecting the company from losing customers. This lock-in is either generated by technological mechanisms or substantial interdependencies of products or services.”

A typical lock-in example is Apple. Once you are in the Apple Ecosystem it is difficult for you to switch (in my own case since 2008 😂). One counter measure from the consumers’ point of view is to lengthen the life span of a certain product (in my case I change an iPhone every 5 years and a MacBook every 10 years). Another counter measure is to increase the frequency of change. E.g. I know someone who would always buy the most up-to-date Apple products. He applies an Apple product probably while maintaining the status good enough so that he can resell this used product at a relatively good price and so as to buy the next new thing.

From the producer’s point of view, the product or service has to deliver a high grade of user-friendliness to make sure the customers are happy with the lock-in, which in most cases of Apple products.

To be honest, the Schleich figures are really very well-made and worth collecting. So we are glad to get locked-in into a world full of different animals.

A sustainable and successful business will never rely on a single and simple business model. As mentioned in my other blog concerning the “ Marvel Principles “, success belongs to the past, an innovator should be courageous enough to challenge his/her own success formula to ensure a sustainable growth and continuous innovation. Combine new business model patterns, generate new ideas, test these ideas and implement them into business models of your own. This is the true INNOVATION .

(First published in December 2020)

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IMAGES

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VIDEO

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