A Deadly Duo

Today, as I was enjoying my cheeseburger and fries at McDonald's (it's a once in awhile treat, don't judge) I realized something that has actually been bothering me for a few months now. It was actual spurred by a conversation I overheard from another table. I give credit where credit is due. Has anyone else noticed that McDonald's is blatantly targeting African-Americans in their ads? I think that every new ad I have seen for good ole Mickey D's in the last six months has featured African-American actors and some version of hip-hop/glam rap. I decided to check this out further and this is what I found.

McDonald's was the second highest spender in targeted African-American advertising from Oct 2006 to Nov 2007, beat out only by Procter & Gamble who sell um...everything. They spent $37.7 million in targeted advertising alone. I also stumbled across some targeted advertising I wasn't even aware of. Since I am not, in fact, African-American this is not surprising. Apparently, McDonald's is specifically targeting African-American women with a branded browser takeover and game on BET.com. Similarly targeted flash ads were also featured on BlackPlanet.com and AOL BlackVoices. As an occasional AOL user and music browser, I can say I saw no similar advertising campaign targeted at Caucasian women. 

Need more evidence? In an article published in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health, researchers found that advertisers specifically target African Americans with unhealthy food messages. In TV and print, high-fat, high-calorie foods are more heavily promoted to African Americans. Television shows popular among black audiences run a greater number of food commercials than do general-audience shows. And the commercials themselves are more likely to pitch foods higher in calories and lower in nutritional value to black viewing audiences.

And why should we care? As we all well know, McDonald's food is high in sodium, cholesterol, saturated fats, and the especially evil transfat (which the promised to take out of their food in 2002 I might add). Not to mention they fact that their food is low in nutritional value. Even an innocuous seeming salad can have as many as 20 grams of fat BEFORE dressing. Exactly the kind of food that causes heart disease. Some stats about African Americans and heart disease. Blacks are less likely to be diagnosed with heart disease and more likely to die from it.  They are 40% more likely to have high blood pressure and 10% less likely to have it under control. And those African American women we mentioned? They're 1.7 times more likely to be obsese. More likely then who? Non-hispanic whites. Exactly the people McDonald's isn't advertising to.