GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Health-minded parents have won: McDonalds in the US will be putting fewer french fries in children’s Happy Meals and adding an apple plus low-fat milk and chocolate milk as drink options. The company will introduce the new meals in September as part of a nutrition drive that includes providing calorie and nutrition information via iPhone and other apps.
The new menus will be 20 percent lower in calories; Happy Meals account for an estimated 10 percent of the company’s business in the US, according to Ad Age, which notes that “the announcement comes just weeks after the National Restaurant Association, in conjunction with Healthy Dining, launched a voluntary initiative by the restaurant industry to spur chains to offer and promote healthier kids-meal options. Chains such as Burger King and Chili’s jumped on board, but McDonald’s was noticeably missing from the list of participants.” The advertising industry newspaper says that McDonalds, under pressure from consumer groups to reduce or completely cut marketing to children, reduced its marketing for Happy Meals by almost 46% in the first quarter of 2011, compared to a year earlier.
The Swedish Millennium Films, based on the novels by Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson, have generated an increase in jobs, marketing, tourism and trade in the Stockholm area, according to a report (pdf) published by the Swedish-based Cloudberry group in collaboration with Oxford Research. They have also saved the city several million dollars in advertising.
The films have been watched by 20 million people, the region has become more popular and tourism is up: to reach an equivalent audience with purchased advertising time, according to Business Wire (BW), the Stockholm region would have to spend nearly CHF144 million.
Production costs of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, “The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”, and “The Girl who Played with Fire” totaled around CHF13 million for wages and services such as catering, housing, transportation, and location rental.
Olof Zetterberg, chief executive of Stockholm Business Region, told BW. “This study confirms that film is also a strategic tool for marketing Stockholm internationally.”
Anders Ekegren, chairman of Filmregion Stockholm-Mälardalen argues in BW that “the study shows that film is virtually unbeatable when it comes to marketing a region and a city. We also see the power of films to create jobs and economic growth at the local and regional levels.”
Links to other sites: Business Wire, Earth Times
What global companies can learn from emerging markets, one of a series of Economist Conferences (15% discount for GenevaLunch readers from our media partner The Economist Group: quote GL/DC when registering):
Discover how the culture of innovation in emerging markets is creating opportunities, as well as dangers, for Western firms. Emerging markets have become the world’s innovation hotbed, producing breakthroughs in all the elements of modern business, from R&D and systems of production through to marketing, pricing and supply-chain management. They not only significantly reduce cost; they redesign entire business processes to do things better and faster than rivals in the West.
Location: Le Richmond Hotel, Jardin Brunswick, 1201 Geneva
Link out: http://eu.economistconferences.com/event/emergi…
Date: 2 Dec 2010
Start time: 8:00
End time: 17:30
Marketing boss, deputy director general posts axed
The marketing chief of the BBC, Sharon Baylay, is being dismissed and will not be replaced, and two board members are leaving, the British public media organization has announced. Baylay’s is one of the first significant departures in a series of expected job cuts that are part of the company’s efforts to reduce senior management by 18 percent and pay for the group by 25 percent, reports the Guardian. The announcement follows shortly after the news that the post of deputy director general will end once Mark Byford, 52, whose salary is £475,000, leaves the job in June 2011, according to the BBC.
(video) Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Fifa, the world football federation, was not amused when a group of mostly blond, willowy women dressed identically in little orange dresses from a Dutch brewery, Bavaria, caught the eye of world cameras at a World Cup match between The Netherlands and Denmark. The 36 women were ejected and questioned to see if they had a link to the brewery, which says it offered the clothes in a gift package. Fifa, which is tough on advertisers and promoters who try to circumvent the strict rules that protect official sponsors, has told several media that the group was hired as part of an advertising campaign.
Budweiser is the official beer sponsor for the World Cup, and has paid millions for the privilege.
Fifa reportedly says it is considering legal action against the brewery, according to the BBC. The Star newspaper in South Africa reports that the stunt could contradict the country’s marketing laws and that in any case ambush marketing is a criminal offense, banned at World Cup games. It quotes a Dutch embassy official, who is looking into the situation, “Foreign Ministry spokesman Aad Meijer said three of the women were Dutch. ‘We are not aware of any South African legislation that allows people to be detained for wearing an orange dress.’” But if the stunt is indeed linked to a TV campaign in The Netherlands, the company may well find itself with a lawsuit brought by Fifa.
Up to 10 million Dutch people were expected to watch the televised match, according to Dutch News.
Media reports in the UK, The Netherlands and South Africa vary wildly, with no official confirmation, on how the young women were treated and whether or not their eviction was a police “detention”.
Links to other sites: BBC, Dutch News, The Star (subscription), IOL (Star reprint)
McDonalds CEO Martin Knoll
Crissier, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Martin Knoll, 51, CEO of McDonald’s Switzerland since 2003, died Friday 21 August in an accident while riding his mountain bike near Engstlenalp, canton Bern, the Crissier, canton Vaud-based company announced.
An Austrian, Knoll joined the company as marketing director for McDonald’s in Austria in 1993. He was was named CEO of the Austrian company in 1997, then vice-president of marketing for 18 countries in Europe and Central Asia, before taking charge of the more than 140 McDonald’s restaurants in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
He is survived by his wife and two children.
The Sears Tower in Chicago, once famed as the tallest building in the world, has a new owner and with it a new name: welcome to the world, the Willis Tower. Marketing experts are debating whether or not the insurance company behind the name will be able to make it stick. Reuters
Martigny, Valais (GenevaLunch) – Canton Valais Tuesday presented the first apples and pears that bear the “Marque Valais” quality label, at the Martigny cantonal commercial fair.
