The King vs Ronald McDonald

I had a very interesting conversation about fast food characters, such as Ronald McDonald and the Burger King King. I began the conversation stating how creepy both characters were and how ridiculous the money spent on advertising these characters was. In the conversation, I realized that the target market can never be overlooked within advertising.

I recently attended the Texas State Fair in Dallas and saw a huge stage. When I got a closer, I then saw a Ronald McDonald character performing to children. It blew my mind that McDonalds would pay for such a large stage for one character and for a great location within the State Fair. I was then enlightened that the Ronald McDonald fast food character is targeting the children, not the adults. To the kids, the character seems like a fun clown who just want to play with them all the time. 

Then, I turned to the Burger King King. How could he too be a character targeting children. At least Ronald McDonald looked friendly and inviting. The King, to me, looks extremely creepy and frightening to children. It was then brought to my attention that this character is not targeting kids. On the contrary, it is targeting 18-35 year old males to be exact. His goal was to promote: No one does creepy better than Burger King. He brought back the conversation to their target market and boosted revenue for doing so. His creepiness brought success to Burger King and they continued to promote the King with video games.

That’s one difference with McDonalds and Burger King, because of their different target audience; they spend more advertising on different medium. As mentioned before, McDonalds spent money on performance for kids and Burger King spent more on video games. This is because more children like physical interaction where they feel as if they have a friend. Burger King’s target market doesn’t get out much nor do they watch a lot of television. Therefore they discovered where most of their audience is consuming media, in videogames.

In this crazy world of advertisements, you are allowed to not like some of it, as I did with these two characters, however these characters were not targeted towards me. Plus, the results from both advertising tactics resulted in success. I learned you cannot overlook the advertising audience, or you will not communicate the message clearly to your target market.