3.Your+Trusted+Friends

Group 3

Lance Whitehead

__**Summary:**__ "Your Trusted Friends" of __Fast Food Nation__ by Eric Schlosser, reflects on the unique relationship of Ray Kroc, the man responsible for making McDonald's a national business, and Walt Disney, the founder of the Disney franchise. The chapter also explains each of the "founding fathers" rise to the top of the big business nation, by emphasizing the use of the profitable techniques of appealing to the younger demographic.

The chapter begins with Schlosser visiting the Ray A. Kroc Museum. He notices that the museum is highly influenced by the ideas of the Disney corporation. He searches for more similarities between the McDonald's and Disney moguls. Schlosser discovers that both Kroc and Disney we born in Illinois, only a year apart. Other mind-blowing similarities between Kroc and Schlosser include that they both dropped out of high school, they both served together in World War I and moved to Southern California after the war, Disney also shared similar political views as Kroc, for example, they both highly supported Richard Nixon's hard work and self-reliance, and lastly it is considered that they both became geniuses at marketing to the youth.

Kroc was not immediately involved in the McDonald's franchise. In fact, Kroc was selling the McDonald's brothers milk-shake mixers, when he began to interact with business. The brothers ordered eight mixers and Kroc was puzzled as to why they needed so many. After long deliberation and rejections, Kroc finally persuaded the McDonald's brothers to give him the right to franchise their restaurant all over the nation. The brothers were pleased with the money they were making, but what could a little extra pocket change hurt? Once an agreement was settled, Kroc sent Disney a letter asking him if there would be any room for a McDonald's in the Disney's new park. In return, Disney wanted Kroc to raise the price of he fires and give Disney a portion of the extra profit. Kroc rejected this, saying that he would never go against his loyal fan base. Therefore a deal was never materialized.

Scholsser then examines Walt Disney's techniques of mass-production and franchising. He finds that Disney had used the same mass-production methods as Henry Ford did, in the Disney Studio. During the Disney studio strike, Disney did not show an sympathy for the union. He then later showed himself as a friendly witness for the House Un-American Activities Committee, for the FBI, he served as a secret informer, and he advocated the Hollywood Blacklist. During this time, Disney rapidly developed resourceful and adequate marketing approach. He managed to gain great amounts of corporate sponsorship, gave a wide range of demographics a place where they "could escape the real world," and formulated the "synergy" strategy, selling the rights of the characters that he created, to other companies to increase the recognition of Disney products.

Kroc worked in similar ways to Disney to also create a brand for the McDonald's corporation. He began by creating the famous Ronald McDonald. The Bozo the Clown inspired figure head was an instant hit with the younger generations and recognition competition of the McDonald's character exploded with the characters of Disney. Kroc continued to franchise his business and battle against Disney in advertising to the younger generation by creating more McDonald's characters and installing "Playland" in all of the restaurants.

Overall, both Kroc and Disney were marketing and franchising gurus. The strategy of aiming advertising to children was an exponential success. The idea was that children seeing these ads would convince their parents in specific ways and furthermore, having a customer for the rest of their life. Advertising to children consisted of television, radio, and paper ads, toys, play lands, theme parks, cross-promotion, and later internet advertising. Another goal was to promote the said company, especially McDonald's, as a "Trusted Friend," thus setting the trend that the company cares about its customers' well-being. This ideology exploded in the 1980s and was significantly growing over time.

Lastly, Scholsser points attention to fast food being incorporated into many public schools' food programs. Some schools are desperate and need funding to educate their beloved students. Thus, fast food industries pay to advertise in schools and soda companies pay to have their products sold through measures of vending machines and other ways as well. On the down side schools find themselves in between a rock and a hard place when weighing funding for education versus their students health.


 * __Supporting Research:__**

Youth is arguable the best demographic for industry to advertise and franchise to. They are easily reachable and persuaded by these advertisements. In fact the average child sees nearly sixteen minutes worth of advertisements per hour just through television advertisements alone. However, this number does fluctuate depending on the time of year. Because the youth are so easily reached by these advertisements, they have become a major factor in company sales and profit. The youth not only spend their own money, but they also have the access to their parents. All in all, a domino affect occurs. The youth see, hear, or read an advertisement, spend money on the product or get their parents to, which then ends in the wealth of businesses. This is undoubtably beneficial to the well-being to the economy of the United States.


 * __Opposing View Point:__**

Many believe that the idea of advertising to the youth is unethical. For the youth cannot separate a need and a want. Companies pry on the youth because they are naïve and can easily the retain the money in their parents' pockets. The youth cannot make logical decisions and therefore are the victims of these businesses franchising techniques. Thus, advertising cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, food, and clothing by exploiting children because of the attractiveness that the companies place upon the products.