McDonald's: "It's What I Eat and What I Do...I'm Lovin' It"

McDonald's Chief Executive Officer Jim Skinner yesterday unveiled a major company initiative centered on what it called a multi-faceted education campaign to help consumers better understand the keys to living balanced, active lives – “It's what I eat and what I do … I'm lovin' it.” The theme, which, according to the news release, underscores the important interplay between eating right and staying active, forms the creative core of the program, which takes an innovative and educational approach to advertising and marketing.

“One of the best things we can do is communicate the importance of energy balance in an engaging and simple way,” said Skinner. “‘It's what I eat and what I do … I'm lovin' it' is a great new message within our ‘I'm lovin' it' theme, and will tie all our balanced, active lifestyles messages together. We are listening to our customers and committed to taking leadership action where we can make a difference.”

This initiative incudes a heavy dose of advertising "geared to children, even as other marketers are shying away from ads aimed at youngsters," according to an article in Ad Age. That publication called the effort an "aggressively positive global marketing campaign."

I couldn't find any sample ads or other messages on the McDonald's web site, so it remains to be seen how well the company can pull this off. For now, I'll remain a bit skeptical. It won't be easy for McDonald's to paint itself as a promoter of healthy living. The ads and other messages will have to be skillfully crafted for the company to seem anything other than hypocritical.

We'll see.