McDonald's Is Turning Happy Meals Into Sad Meals & People Are Confused
Happy Mental Health Awareness Week! Or should we say… Unhappy Mental Health Awareness Week? Some kids at McDonald’s are probably feeling the latter right now.
Earlier this week, TMZ reported that the U.K. division of McDonald’s is celebrating Mental Health Awareness Week with a major rebrand: dropping the word “Happy” from their Happy Meal. Instead, from May 13 to 19, the kids’ meal packaging is simply called “The Meal.” The iconic smile has disappeared from the red boxes, and now there's a reminder that “It’s okay not to feel happy all the time.”
The redesign comes from the agency Leo Burnett U.K. and Ready 10 in an attempt to reflect a study that shows 48% of children in the U.K. feel pressured to be happy all the time.
“We know how important it is to help stimulate open conversations about mental health in families,” said Louise Page, Head of Consumer Communications and Partnerships at McDonald’s. “Through this change to our Happy Meal box, we hope many more families are encouraged to kickstart positive conversations around children’s emotions and wellbeing.”
McDonald’s has distributed 2.5 million smile-free Happy Meal boxes to over a thousand restaurants, with select locations across the country also receiving different emotional mouth stickers so kids can give their meals whatever mood they’d like. The fast food chain also released a commercial on their U.K. YouTube page featuring children sharing how they experience complicated emotions such as moodiness and depression.
In theory, I understand why McDonald’s would employ this marketing strategy. However, removing the familiar smile from an iconic meal designed to bring joy seems counterproductive. If your child is feeling sad, surely you wouldn’t want them to eat something being called a Sad Meal?
“I would assume wiping that smile off your child’s box of nuggets might also wind up wiping the smile off their face, too,” wrote The Cut’s Emily Leibert.
“How is this helpful?” echoed an X user. “Now I have to explain to my child how her happy meal lost its smile.”
“Dang McDonald’s really did remove the smile from the happy meal but it’s for Mental Health Week. Says on it now ‘You don’t have to be happy everyday’ or something like that which idk makes me feel sad lol,” wrote another user.
Nevertheless, the general consensus is that the McDonald’s mental health campaign is more silly than it is helpful.
“Ordering a sad meal everyday from the same McDonald’s until one of the employees asks me what’s wrong,” joked one user.
Another user wrote, “I would love to one day meet the person who could say completely unironically that the McDonald’s Unhappy Meal helped them through a bad place in their life.”
While it's a kind gesture, it's clear that McDonald's is not the place to look for mental health advice. Perhaps it would've been more productive for the fast food chain to provide resources for parents to help their kids through whatever rough times they are facing. Regardless of your stance on the Not-So-Happy Meal campaign, one thing is for certain: we're all happy that it's only lasting a week.
What do you think of the Happy Meal rebrand? Let us know in the comments.
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