We said that we would be bringing back our fast food trend series and we weren’t lying. Here are some more fast food trends that we hope you enjoy reading.
Playgrounds
-The McDonald’s Playland opened its doors in 1971. Fast food giants like McDonald’s , Chuck E. Cheese and other restaurants are always trying to create the next great playground to convince kids to come and play there and hopefully eat some food as well. It gives parents a chance to relax for a few seconds while their kids run around and have some fun. It seems that these playgrounds are also full of germs as one mother spent money to test 10 local fast food playgrounds and discovered fecal matter in 9 out of the 10 restaurants that were tested. McDonald’s is now moving away from PlayLands and are beginning to create new McDonald’s R Gyms that include interactive fun zones and stationary bikes attached to video games to try and get kids more active and to lose some weight after eating those 20 chicken mcnuggets. Personally, I used to like the old McDonald’s PlayLands that were outside and featured cool playground equipment that you didn’t see at any other playground in the area. Some of the equipment looked as dangerous as hell but it was part of the experience. Now, all the playgrounds are these coconut plastic tubes that look like they’re designed to get kids trapped inside them and never leave the restaurant again.
Drive-Thru Diets
-Fast food giants are doing a great job at convincing people that you can lose weight be eating food only at their restaurants. We all remember Jared from Subway and how he lost a bunch of weight and managed to convince everybody that Subway sandwiches were a healthy alternative to eating burgers at a place like McDonald’s or Burger King. We now have Christine Doughtery who Taco Bell executives are using to convince the world that eating Taco Bell’s new Fresco tacos and burritos will help you to lose weight. Taco Bell’s new fresco tacos and burritos are 7 items with under 9 grams of fat and Christine is insistent that she lost over 54lbs. from eating nothing but these menu items. We applaud these companies for trying to convince people that their new menu items are healthier choices for consumers but at what point do we call bullshit on these gimmicks? If Denny’s comes out with a low fat menu will we believe them also? McDonald’s tried this concept with their McLean Deluxe burger and it failed miserably because the burgers tasted awful. I guess people will be convinced of anything as long as the food still tastes good.
Fast Food Loyalty
-Many marketing executives needed to learn the value of customer loyalty programs in consumer behavior classes before they went off and tried to recreate these programs on their own. We were given the ‘Club Card’ at Subway restaurants which allowed you to bring in a card that was stamped every time that you ordered a Subway meal. You would receive a free Subway sandwich whenever your card was stamped on the 6th try. These loyalty cards have mainly disappeared and been replaced by surveys on the back of receipts where customers can phone-in, complete the survey and receive a free food item on their next visit to the restaurant. Another loyalty program that has become popular is to give out free coupons and promotions to customers who give out their email address and sign-up with whichever fast food program they want to.
Burger King Whopper Bar
-Burger King is trying to fancy up its establishments by creating a new burger bar concept in select locations worldwide. The open bar concept will allow the company to sell some of their famous burgers including the whopper or the steakhouse XT and will have over 22 different toppings to create the burger of your dreams. Employees will have new red and black uniforms and the company hopes to have over 500 of these establishments in everything from stadiums to casinos very soon. It looks like Burger King is trying to go more contemporary and is trying to emulate the success of burger bars such as Five Guys or Shake Shack. Anytime you can find new toppings beyond the typical tomatoes, lettuce and pickles will be an advantage for any customer who wants to try something new and improved.
Celebrities Eating Burgers
-I guess advertising the tastiness of the food simply isn’t getting it done anymore. Lately, there is trend of showing celebrities eating burgers as though they are having sex with the burger. Paris Hilton’s Carl’s Jr. ads where she ate a burger while washing down a car with water created plenty of controversy for the fast food chain. Model Heidi Klum is the face of advertising for McDonald’s Germany and has no problem chowing down on a big juicy burger. The discussion becomes whether these celebrities actually enjoy eating these burgers on a regular basis or are simply doing it as a publicity stunt. Many celebrities eating the food are women who have been accused of being too thin for the cameras and by eating fast food it shows that they aren’t always dieting and like to eat an unhealthy food every once and a while. On the other hand, many nutritional experts would advise the celebrity to stay away from eating junk food in public as it may send the wrong message to young people that eating fast food is healthy for you and is an acceptable practice.There have been two more recent trends of establishments creating super rich burgers that need a personal loan with a bank just to be able to afford and super enormous burgers with enough calories to kill a full-grown man but we’ve decided to devote an entire new article on this subject very soon. In the meantime, we hope you enjoyed our article on fast food trends and if you have an other trends that we missed we’d be more than glad to read your comment on the subject.
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