Corporate Accountability International Asks CEO Skinner to Retire Ronald at McDonald’s Corporate Shareholder Meeting

5/20/2010

A team of Corporate Accountability International staff and volunteers presented the demands of the Value [the] Meal campaign to the McDonald’s CEO, Jim Skinner, and executives at the McDonald’s shareholder’s meeting on May 20. Senior Organizer, Deborah Lapidus, and Chicago action committee leaders, Dr. Alfred Klinger and Janis Sanchez made hard-hitting statements at the meeting, challenging the use of Ronald McDonald to market directly to children, and calling on CEO Jim Skinner to retire the icon.

While the team engaged directly with shareholders inside the corporate meeting, other Corporate Accountability staff and volunteers organized a visibility action outside of the meeting. Retired children’s marketing icons Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man, along with a gaggle of clowns and a documentary filmmaker drove a “Children’s Marketing Icon Retirement Shuttle” into the McDonald’s campus, searching for Ronald McDonald to bring him to the retirement home. At the McDonald’s security gate, the Marlboro Man (the driver of the shuttle), greeted the guard with a twang-y, “Howdy Partner, we’re looking for Ronald at the Shareholder Meeting.” The guard waved the van onto the campus, and the clowns exited at the entrance to the shareholder meeting, where they unrolled a 5 foot by 10 foot Retire Ronald banner, and passed out flyers to shareholders.

Security asked the group of clowns and retired icons to leave the McDonald’s campus, and the crew relocated to the campus entrance, where they greeted remaining shareholders. All in all, the action “surpassed our expectations,” noted national organizer and Joe Camel, John Stewart.