Repercussions of Targeting the Wrong Audience

Many companies focus on targeting the consumers that they feel are most likely to use and purchase their product or service, but in 2006, the once popular GM line, Hummer, decided to target children, rather than the adults who can actually afford to purchase the cars. The campaign started when Hummer teamed up with McDonald’s to create a Hummer car Happy Meal toy to be given to children with their meals.  This seemed like a good idea to the companies who were attempting to target adults through their young children. Around the same time, Hummer launched a website called HummerKids.com, where they offered various advergames and branded fun for kids to engage and interact closely with the Hummer brand. Like many kids sites, the racing themed advergames featured colorful graphics and exciting audio features, allowing kids to fully experience the Hummer brand.

While this campaign may seem well intentioned, it resulted in a huge amount of negative PR for both McDonalds and Hummer brands. Many enraged parents and environmentalists spoke up about the campaign and criticized both companies for attempting to target parents by using their innocent and impressionable children.  Environmentalists also claimed that trying to make the car seem “cool” to kids sends the wrong message about the importance being environmentally friendly and doesn’t take into account many of the repercussions that come with having such a large, gas-guzzling vehicle. McDonalds chose to address the controversy over their blog, defending themselves by saying that when “looked at through children's eyes, the miniature Hummers are just toys, not vehicle recommendations, or a source of consumer messages about natural resource conservation, greenhouse gas emissions, etc." While this may be true, McDonalds made the mistake of deleting most of the negative comments on their blog about the campaign, further enraging many people who then took their opinions to other websites, bashing both companies even more.

Essentially, the controversy here boils down to the McDonald's and Hummer brands targeting the wrong audience to promote the new H3 line of cars. While this was only one of many ad campaigns Hummer had going, it still managed to anger quite a few people and put yet another dent the Hummer brand. As a guideline, companies should always steer clear of targeting children to promote products used by adults. Parents are very protective of their children and although it may not seem harmful, people don’t like others trying to persuade their children of anything, especially controversial items that have negative effects on the environment. This campaign was very harmful to Hummer’s credibility with consumers and was just one of the many mistakes that lead to the companies eventual demise.