McDonald's, Scholastic Launch Program

McDonald's Corp. has budgeted about $1 million for a customized marketing campaign it will conduct with Scholastic Corp.

Like a similar one last year, the promotion is designed to reach children under age 6 through a lending library of Scholastic books. McDonald's will mail the mini-library to the nation's largest 22,000 pre-school and kindergarten classrooms.

The books will go directly to teachers who receive Scholastic's bimonthly Parent & Child magazine.

Enclosed with the mini-library will be a business reply card for teachers' responses. Teachers will be asked to answer seven questions on the BRC. Besides updating name and address, they'll be asked their thoughts about the program itself, such as whether it helped fuel kids' excitement about reading. And they'll be asked whether McDonald's should renew the program.

The promotion is one of 14 Scholastic will co-sponsor this year.

“Programs like this help us refine the Scholastic database because we get feedback from the teachers,” said Fran Reilly, vice president of business development for Scholastic Consumer Magazine Group, which publishes Parent & Child. “The feedback tells us that here's a teacher open to receiving custom programs from us.”

If McDonald's renews for a third year, the books could be used as a vehicle to reach parents, Reilly said. An insert card can be slipped inside volumes children borrowed from their classroom so that parents can order more books by mail.

“In the long term, we see McDonald's program as a way to build a database of responsive parents, too,” Reilly said.

McDonald's intent is to associate its mascot, the clown Ronald McDonald, with preschoolers' emotions toward learning to read, and to raise awareness of Ronald as a brand icon among kids.

“Reading is fun, but it's also intimidating,” said Rob Davis, media director at media specialist firm Starcom Worldwide, which handles the McDonald's campaign. “Ronald embodies the positive qualities of what education and reading stand for.”

The mini-library is comprised of 10 Scholastic books to be placed on a cardboard shelf bedecked with an animated rendering of Ronald. A letter to teachers explaining the Ronald McDonald Reading Corner donation, along with the reply card, also is included. The books are Scholastic favorites such as “City Mouse, Country Mouse” and “Mrs. Toggle's Picture Day.” A message to parents will be printed inside each book cover.

Last year, the response rate for the BRCs was 10%, Davis said, and of those, all said McDonald's should renew. The same enthusiasm is expected this year.

As the restaurant chain ventures beyond television advertising for the first time to reach this age group, McDonald's decision-makers said a major selling point was that they could get direct feedback from recipients, Davis said.

Any complaints about advertising in the classroom? “No,” Davis said. “And we were a little worried about that. But Ronald embodies non-commercial qualities. He's never hawking anything. In fact, we're donating something.”

Scholastic Magazine Group manages such programs through its newly formed Parent & Child 6-and-under custom marketing unit. Each campaign costs the marketer between $500,000 and $1 million.

The new unit represents a third of the magazine's revenue, Reilly said. “I expect it to go to 50% in the next three to four months, and to be equal to the Parent & Child advertising revenue in a year.”