Ronald McDonald

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ronald McDonald is an advertising character and the official mascot of the fast food company McDonald’s in the form of a clown . She is also a godfather for McDonald's Children's Aid . The advertising figure is famously just behind Santa Claus among American children and the American magazine Advertising Age named Ronald McDonald the second most successful advertising symbol of the 20th century after the Marlboro man . Meanwhile, Ronald McDonald is also very well known worldwide, but in countries outside the USA and Europe, Ronald is not always perceived positively.

Appearance

Ronald McDonald ( portrait )

The original appearance of Ronald McDonald was very different from today's: Ronald carried a tray with french fries , milkshakes and hamburgers on his head and a paper cup as a nose in the first commercials . He carried a second tray with identical contents on his strap.

Today Ronald is portrayed as a typical clown: his face is adorned with a large, red-painted smile and powdered completely white except for the vertical make-up eyes, only the tip of the nose is red. Ronald wears a red, curly wig and black eyebrows to match . He wears a sleeveless yellow jumpsuit with a white collar and a red fastener over his horizontally red-white-striped full-body costume, with the official McDonald's logo on the breast pocket . He also wears yellow gloves and oversized red ankle boots with yellow laces and black soles.

Plastic or paper mache figures of Ronald can often be seen sitting on a bench with his right arm bent over to invite customers and strollers to take a photo.

history

Ronald was invented in the 1960s by advertising man Barry Klein and professional clown Willard Scott . Scott was previously on the children's program Bozo's Circus from 1959 to 1962 , which was televised in Washington . In 1963, WRC-TV produced three commercials starring Scott alias Ronald, which were broadcast in the Washington area. Ronald McDonald made his first public appearance that same year at a Thanksgiving parade in Washington, DC . Scott's career as "Ronald" came to an end in 1966, however.

He was succeeded by Michael "Coco" Polakov , who was a well-known clown with the Ringling Brothers at the time. Polakov aka Ronald first appeared in Macy's annual Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City in 1966 . After that, McDonald's shot several commercials with him.

Ronald McDonald as the namesake of charitable institutions

In 1974, the first Ronald McDonald House opened in Philadelphia as a charitable institution specially for parents of seriously ill children who were looking for accommodation near children's hospitals.

In Germany there are currently 22 Ronald McDonald Houses and 6 special facilities (called Ronald McDonald Oases ).

There are also charities in the UK . One is in Guys Hospital in London and the other in the Midlands . In England, the facilities are financed through the brisk sale of various merchandise and telephone cards .

Ronald McDonald in Germany

On December 4, 1971, the first German McDonald's branch opened in Munich , and around 1980 Ronald became more and more popular in Germany. In 1986 the first Ronald McDonald House was opened in Giessen . In East Germany , the figure was introduced with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Since then, he's been featured regularly in commercials for McDonald's, especially on children's channels. The commercial success of the advertising figure in Germany reinforced McDonald's corporate intentions. In the successful year, the German McDonald's Children's Aid Foundation started an initiative against increasing speed limits in localities, especially in front of schools and kindergartens . The campaign was supported and sponsored by ProSieben and ESSO .

Ronald McDonald outside of the US and Europe

Ronald statue in Bangkok with traditional wai gesture

The figure Ronald McDonald is now known worldwide. In Russia , Thailand , China and Japan , the clown is very easily recognized, right after Mickey Mouse and his dog Pluto . In regular surveys by television and universities, children and young people of all age groups are consistently able to correctly name Ronald McDonald and immediately associate him with McDonald's.

In Japan, however, Ronald's breakthrough came rather late. The reason for this was allegedly Ronald's face with its white make-up, which in Japan traditionally stands for death, among other things . Such rumors were (and are) spread among marketing agencies. However, faces with white make-up are primarily regarded as an ideal of beauty, especially among women (for example among geishas ). Since the Japanese knew from the outset that McDonald's came from Western culture, it is unlikely that Japanese consumers would have been bothered by Ronald's white face. The reason for the rather slow breakthrough of McDonald's was based much more on the general attitude of Japan towards western cultural influences. In the meantime, Ronald and McDonald's have also established themselves in Japan, and the branches experience a comparatively high turnover. However, Ronald was in " D renamed onald McDonald" because the "r" English is not part of the Japanese sound inventory.

Ronald did not have an easy start in Mexico either: there, especially in earlier years, clowns of all kinds were considered to be the lowest class. Accordingly, his figure established itself as an advertising medium late.

In Thailand, life-size plastic statues of Ronald have established themselves in front of the entrances to McDonald's branches and greet visitors with the traditional wai gesture .

In China, Ronald McDonald is also very well known, especially among children. Above all, these collect the character figures of the Ronald McDonald world in toy form, which are usually included in the so-called Happy Meals .

Criticism of Ronald McDonald as an advertising character

In China, the figure of Ronald has repeatedly been the target of political attack and abuse. In 2000, numerous demonstrators in Hong Kong dressed up as Ronald and carried signs and banners of political hostility on them. The background was citizens' protests against McDonald's as an alleged symbol of Western oppression and alleged promotion of child labor .

Ronald McDonald was also attacked in India and his portrayal was temporarily banned. The protests were triggered by a publication in 2001 that McDonald's would deep-fry its French fries with beef suet. Hundreds of angry Hindus then stormed McDonald's branches in Mumbai and set them on fire. Statues and posters with Ronald's portrait on them were smeared with cow dung and / or scratched beyond recognition.

In 2011, Corporate Accountability International demanded that McDonald's immediately remove Ronald as an official advertising character. The reason for this was the rapidly increasing obesity among children and adolescents, for which fast food companies, including McDonald's, were (and are) blamed. McDonald's declined, citing Ronald's popularity and success in the charitable field. However, the advertising concept has changed: Ronald does sports and gymnastics in the latest commercials and encourages children to be fit.

literature

  • William F. Eadie: Twenty-first century communication (= 21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook. Volume 21). Sage, Los Angeles 2009, ISBN 1-412-95030-9 .
  • Yadong Luo: How to enter China: Choices and Lessons. University of Michigan Press, 2001, ISBN 0-472-11188-4 .
  • Mia Mask: Contemporary Black American Cinema: Race, Gender and Sexuality at the Movies. Routledge, London 2012, ISBN 0-415-52322-2 .
  • Martin Meyer, Melanie Herbst: International brand strategy - brands between standardization and differentiation. GRIN, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 3-640-85195-1 .
  • Heike Mieth: The History of McDonald's. GRIN, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 3-638-84295-9 .
  • Susan M. Pearce , Paul Martin, Alexandra Bounia: The Collector's Voice: Critical Readings in the Practice of Collecting. Contemporary Voices (= Collector's voice. Volume 4). Ashgate, London 2002, ISBN 1-859-28420-5 .
  • Andrew F. Smith: Encyclopedia of Junk Food And Fast Food. Greenwood, Westport 2006, ISBN 0-313-33527-3 .
  • Andrew F. Smith, Bruce Kraig: The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America , Volume 1. Oxford University Press, New York 2013, ISBN 0-199-73496-8 .
  • Charles Wilson, Eric Schlosser: Chew on this: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston 2007, ISBN 0-618-593942 .

Web links

Commons : Ronald McDonald  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Andrew F. Smith: Encyclopedia of Junk Food And Fast Food . Pp. 4-6, 12, 41 & 231.
  2. ^ Charles Wilson, Eric Schlosser: Chew on this. P. 46 & 47.
  3. ↑ a b c d Heike Mieth: The History of McDonald’s . Pp. 9-13.
  4. ↑ http://www.mcdonalds-kinderhilfe.org/wer-wir-sind/vision/ accessed on December 20, 2016
  5. ^ Susan M. Pearce, Paul Martin, Alexandra Bounia: The Collector's Voice . P. 121.
  6. ^ Martin Meyer, Melanie Herbst: International brand strategy . P. 27.
  7. ↑ a b Background information on Ronald McDonald as a global mascot on brandeins.de ( memento of the original from August 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (German). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.brandeins.de
  8. ↑ Information about Ronald's alleged almost flop in Japan at prozielmarketing.wordpress.com (German).
  9. ^ Andrew Smith, Bruce Kraig: The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America . P. 152.
  10. ↑ William F. Eadie: Twenty-first century communication . P. 833.
  11. ^ Yadong Luo: How to enter China. P. 288.
  12. ^ Mia Mask: Contemporary Black American Cinema . P. 157.