While fast-food chains are responding to nutritional criticism by enhancing their kids menus, American children appear less and less interested in what they're peddling. NPD Group calculated that visits to fast-food restaurants in which kids meals were purchased have declined every year since 2007 and fell by 5 percent last year from 2010.

It's not that parents don't want healthier fare to their children when they eat out. In the U.S., analysts are suggesting that the notion of kids' meals is becoming increasingly outdated as family eating patterns change. And for that reason, they say, even sales of McDonald's iconic Happy Meal might be only flat these days at best — and at a chain whose other product lines are growing robustly, that's not good performance.

One factor, for example, is tight budgets that continue to afflict many American households — especially fast-food consumers — at a time of high unemployment and continued economic uncertainty. Mothers have "probably switched to the value menu because it was cheaper than the kids meal" at many chains, Bonnie Riggs, NPD restaurant-industry analyst, told the Chicago Tribune.

It also appears that kids are becoming disenchanted with the licensed toys packaged in the meals, at a younger and younger age, dropping from age 12 to eight. Blame digital entertainment, cell phones, and other rivals for kids' attention. But all of that apparently doesn't hold true in the UK, where McDonald's is using the revamped Happy Meal as a marketing hook to win over parents (via their kids) around its London 2012 Olympics sponsorship.Continue reading...

The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius ("Faster, Higher, Stronger"), but perhaps the word “cheaper” should be added. Toy versions of the Olympic mascots Mandeville and Wenlock are being made at a Chinese subcontractor to British firm Golden Bear Toys, with the mainland China factor now being investigated for “poor pay and conditions.”

Telford, UK-based Golden Bear was given the toy contract back in 2010 and it is now investigating the allegations along with the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games, the BBC notes. "We are a family-run business that takes these issues very seriously indeed and has in place certificates of compliance at all factories used to produce our products," Golden Bear Chairman John Hales said in statement to the BBC. "We are therefore in the process of conducting an immediate investigation and will be able to comment on these findings as soon as they are known to us.”

A London 2012 spokesman said that results of the investigations would be made public as soon as they are concluded, the BBC reports.Continue reading...

The International Olympic Committee has been using "The Best of Us" as a tagline in its ongoing marketing campaign to promote the Olympic Games.

Now, with less than 250 days to go before the London 2012 summer games, the New York Times notes that, in addition to TV commercials, the IOC and London Olympic organizers are using the tagline as the basis of a global campaign "to reach younger viewers through social media, user-generated content and other digital offerings." The goal is not only to engage the public, but particularly youths, in London 2012 via the web, mobile and social media.Continue reading...

Remember when the Olympics were all about international fellowship and goodwill to your fellow man? Those were the days! 

Team Great Britain re-introduced its mascot for the Olympics this week, a lion named Pride, that will find its way onto hundreds of products before the Games kick off next summer.

Of course, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games themselves already have two one-eyed mascots: Wenlock and Mandeville, modeled after two drops of steel, supposedly from the last girder of London’s new Olympic Stadium.

If you don’t think drops of steel are cuddly enough, Pride may be your man. The Guardian reports that the new lion in town who has a Union Jack-colored mane was inspired by the lion mascot of the 1966 World Cup, which was held in (and won by) England, the very cool World Cup Willie.

Pride made his first appearance on the scene, by the way, when British Olympians made their way to Beijing in 2008, though his mane wasn’t quite so colorful then.Continue reading...