Moms defend 'victimized food': McDonald's marketing program is working

How many Happy Meals does it take to make someone truly happy? McDonald's is trying to figure out that formula by recruiting and educating "real" moms to defend its food as a healthful choice for their children -- or at least give them the assurance that the food is sanitary. A pilot program has recently been expanded in the Washington, D.C. area with five local moms who responded, among 83,000 others, to be taken on tours and pitched on how McDonald's fries are a "victimized food."

The program pitches the nutritional content of menu items and astounds customers with "real eggs!" used in its Egg McMuffins (the eggs are actually cracked and fried, although scrambled eggs are sent in already liquid form to franchisees). McDonald's says it is undergoing this program to bring "transparency" (and, likely, buzz on blogs and other social media networks, including its own web site about the project). But it must have chosen the moms with care; none of these seem concerned with what the chickens are eating, or how the cows were slaughtered; they're more focused on whether restaurant workers are using gloves to assemble salads from bagged lettuce (but, umm, what about the lettuce's treatment before it got to the bagging facility?). Once these questions have been answered thoroughly and with photo ops!, the moms are satisfied, guilt assuaged and prepared to inspect the hands of the servers on their next visit with eagle eyes.