Eric Schlosser is an American journalist known for his investigative pieces. In Fast Food Nation, he reveals the practices of the fast food industry. Perhaps an inspiration for this text was Supersize Me, where the director and protagonist, Morgan Spurlock ate everything from the McDonald’s fast food chain menu for a whole month. In this certain chapter Schlosser introduces us to the advertising means of the chain, and how they manipulate consumers.
This chapter begins with a walkthrough of the McDonald's corporate headquarters, where managers are trained at the Hamburger University, there is an everything-McDonald’s gift shop, and a museum dedicated to the company’s founder, Ray A. Kroc. The Kroc museum resembles the tone of Disneyland and this is indicative of Disney’s influence over Kroc, especially in their business tactics. Disney and Kroc both hated socialism and were avid believers of the capitalistic form of business, a social Darwinism that allowed only the most prepared, strongest to survive. Kroc's business strategies have survived until today, as seen in the part of the chapter where Schlosser reveals the current psychological tactics that this company has come up with to target customers.
These tactics are what develop the brand essence of the corporation. McDonald’s knows that its customers are feeling like they aren’t important to the company anymore and at a corporate meeting, the memo distributed to its participants encourages the chain to make them “believe” that McDonald’s does indeed care about them. Another memo reminded them that their targets were parents that do not spend enough time with their children, specifically single-moms, because taking their kids to McDonald’s makes them feel like “good” parents. Another tactic they use is the crib-to-the grave advertisement, something probably taken up from Disney, where they try to advertise to all age groups for the rest of their lives. McDonalds has also developed a way to market to children- Happy Meals. This tactic has been very popular and has made them extremely successful on the kids market. 