Sign up for action alerts
News & Events
May /09/2012
May /02/2012
Apr /10/2012
Oregonian - National campaign against McDonald's mascot kicks off in Cedar Mill
By Emily E. Smith
February 02, 2011
Protesters prepare to present a petition to a local McDonald's restaurant, asking the company to stop marketing its products to children.
The McDonald’s restaurant in Cedar Mill set the scene Wednesday morning for a national campaign, which takes aim at the role of fast food marketing in the obesity epidemic.
A handful of volunteers for Corporate Accountability International met at a community room in the Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation Sunset Swim Center and walked to the Cedar Mill McDonald’s restaurant, where they hoped to present a petition to Don Armstrong, the owner of 13 Portland-area McDonald’s stores.
The petition, signed by more than 500 Portland-metro residents, asks McDonald’s to “retire Ronald,” the company’s kid-friendly clown mascot.
Corporate Accountability International says Ronald McDonald is “as recognizable to children as Santa Claus.”
“McDonald’s has written the playbook on hawking junk food to kids,” Grace Morris, an organizer for the nonprofit, said, reading a prepared statement Wednesday morning.
“One in three kids and teens is overweight or obese,” she said, adding that even more are expected to develop type II diabetes and other diet-related health problems.
Lesley Brake, of Northwest Portland, said she volunteered to speak out about McDonald’s marketing tactics after she signed Corporate Accountability International’s petition.
Brake, the mother of a 13-year-old, said she’s observed the influence of commercial advertising over her own daughter’s interests. Knowing how marketing can win children over, McDonald’s tactics are wrong, she said.
The group got a few honks of approval as it marched about a quarter-mile to McDonald’s, holding signs, bearing messages including, “Don Armstrong: Tell McDonald’s to stop marketing to kids.”
Martin Donahoe, a physician of internal medicine at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center, spoke out Wednesday, too.
He’s watched the obesity epidemic take form, he said, and children are affected now like never before.
“If it weren’t for smoking and obesity, I’d probably be out of business,” he said, as the group walked down Northwest Murray Boulevard.
Three representatives of the McDonald’s corporation met the group outside the restaurant’s front doors and received the petitions on Armstrong’s behalf.
Katie Conway, public relations manager for McDonald’s in Oregon, said Armstrong didn’t show up to receive the petition because he was out of town. McDonald’s was given less than 24 hours’ notice of the group’s plans to deliver the petition.
The corporate office did provide the group with a written statement, which said in part:
“Ronald McDonald is not retiring.
He is the heart and soul of Ronald McDonald House Charities, which lends a helping hand to families in their time of need, particularly when families need to be near their critically-ill children in hospitals.”
In response to McDonald’s statement, Morris said the company’s charity work shouldn’t use the clown to further its branding efforts.
Corporate Accountability International will present petitions at McDonald’s stores later this week in Brooklyn, N.Y., Portsmouth, N.H., and Burlington, Vt.
Click here to read the article in the Oregonian.
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is available without profit for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Give
Corporate Accountability -give, action, about Resources - media center, store, publications Campaigns - water, food, tobacco, hall of shame Network - news, blog
, Sign Up!
Tweet
Tweet
