The bottom line is: People don't like being manipulated. "Not turning an addict away" is different than actively seeking addicts (or purposefully turning people into addicts). McDonald's R&D doesn't attempt to solve the question "how can I convince someone to eat every single meal of the day at McDonald's."
What a strange example to choose since this is actually precisely what fast food companies do: the food at mcdonalds is designed around keeping you hungry despite eating it (its quite literally JUNK food). For example, a Coca Cola contains a ton of salt as well as sugar, so that your thirst is not quenched in the same way as drinking water. I'd list more examples but there is just so much literature around this now that a simple google search should suffice (even just watching Supersize Me would be a good start - -This movie is actually very related to your point as it deals with how McDonalds used to ask you to supersize, which is clearly a proactive position in making you eat vs. just not turning you away).
But even beyond that, there was just recently an article on how McDonalds is introducing snack wraps because they perceive that the best way to grow now is to convince people to eat at McDonalds BETWEEN meals as well. The article was basically centered around "where does the biggest fast food chain go from here?" (looking for link and will edit shortly if I find it). If you look at the advertising behind these new additions, they are trying to train people that they should eat these snacks in-between their other existing meals, "on the go". So basically, you're hypothetical is actually not devious enough: they've already been so successful at convincing their target market to eat all their meals at McDonald's that they now need to create new meals in order to grow!
"a Coca Cola contains a ton of salt as well as sugar"
It's about 0.045g sodium per 354mL can. That's about 1/50th of a healthy daily sodium intake. What effect that has on thirst I do not know, but calling that a "ton" is simply false.
Check up on the facts to avoid repeating propaganda.
My mistake, you are absolutely right that it contains relatively little sodium -- however upon reviewing the facts upon your excellent suggestion, it is in fact a diuretic (due mainly to the caffeine content). Thus, it does very much cancel out the hydration it supposedly provides. So, yes I forgot the reason it works against itself but it very much does. So whereas drinking the equivalent amount of water would leave you satisfied an hour later, with Coke you may very well be going back to buy another bottle (also perhaps due to the crash from the initial sugar rush).
Coca Cola contains relatively little caffeine by fluid volume compared to, say, coffee. But more importantly, it's well documented that regular users of caffeine build up tolerance to its diuretic effects. From the Wikipedia page on caffeine:
"Most people who consume caffeine, however, ingest it daily. Regular users of caffeine have been shown to develop a strong tolerance to the diuretic effect,[34] and studies have generally failed to support the notion that ordinary consumption of caffeinated beverages contributes significantly to dehydration, even in athletes.[35][36][37]"
Here are the references:
[34] ^ a b c Maughan RJ, Griffin J (December 2003). "Caffeine ingestion and fluid balance: a review". J Hum Nutr Diet 16 (6): 411–20. doi:10.1046/j.1365-277X.2003.00477.x. PMID 19774754.
[35] ^ O'connor, Anahad (2008-03-04). "Really? The claim: caffeine causes dehydration". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-08-03.
[36] ^ Armstrong LE, Casa DJ, Maresh CM, Ganio MS (July 2007). "Caffeine, fluid-electrolyte balance, temperature regulation, and exercise-heat tolerance". Exerc Sport Sci Rev 35 (3): 135–40. doi:10.1097/jes.0b013e3180a02cc1. PMID 17620932.
[37] ^ Armstrong LE, Pumerantz AC, Roti MW, Judelson DA, Watson G, Dias JC, Sokmen B, Casa DJ, Maresh CM, Lieberman H, Kellogg M (June 2005). "Fluid, electrolyte, and renal indices of hydration during 11 days of controlled caffeine consumption". Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab 15 (3): 252–65. PMID 16131696.
This is an incredibly thorough defense of a commercial soft-drink. You kind of sound like a coke dealer. Basically, all this stuff is bad because it gives you momentary pleasure at the cost of your long term health. It seems like splitting hairs to decide who to blame. Just say no.
Dude, I copy and pasted straight from Wikipedia. How exactly is that a thorough defense? I don't drink caffeinated beverages, so I haven't even got a dog in this hunt.
Any chance the added salt just makes it taste a little better? Maybe their scientists are working really hard at making coke taste really good (to the masses, IMHO all soda is gross)... which is addicting, because people like things that taste good?
> McDonalds used to ask you to supersize, which is
> clearly a proactive position
1. You're already inside of a McDonald's ordering a meal when they ask you the question. The question did not convince you to dine at McDonald's in the first place.
2. Eating a few more fries and drinking a bit more soda is not an encouragement of addiction. The extra bit of food and drink is not going to be the deciding factor in whether or not you end up so addicted to McDonald's that you have to keep coming back for more. (Note: I'm not saying that it's healthy)
3. French fries and soda are huge profit centers for McDonald's, which is why they encourage you to pay them more for a bit extra. There was no evil McDonald's marketing meeting where it was decided that adding "super size" as an option would keep people coming back to McDonald's like heroin addicts. McDonald's keeps people coming back by: 1) having food with a pleasing taste -- not necessarily healthy -- 2) via branding, and 3) consistency -- people can count on McDonald's food to taste the same anywhere within the same country.
> they've already been so successful at convincing
> their target market to eat all their meals at
> McDonald's
Are you really going to claim that McDonald's target market is eating all their meals at McDonald's? Really?
Sounds good, but it's exactly contrary to how McDonald's operates. At McD's, the goal is to upsell continuously. To transform casual eaters (1x per month or so) to "heavy eaters" who visit on a weekly basis.
A few minutes work at the Googles will show you how this pervasive philosophy started with all of the kids menu items and advertising, and has continued onward with the McCafe and other additions.
The goal is for you to eat three meals a day at McD's. Make no mistake about it.
That's why advertising exists though. I'm sure McDonalds would be very happy if you ate there every day. That guy from Subway did and now hes a company spokesman. So I don't believe its about manipulation - because thats an essential part of taking people's money for any business.
I'm not sure if that's the right analogy. The closer analogy would be if McDonald's had their R&D team study the chemistry of addictive substances and deliberately engineered the food in that direction.
Maybe the better analogy would be if McDonald's tested whether people enjoyed their food enough to come back often, and iterated upon that metric to maximize it. Maybe they would use imagery and psychology in their stores and advertising to elicit an emotional response in people to enjoy the "experience" of McDonald's as more than just a food production and distribution service. Maybe they would tie in to other things that people enjoyed (I don't know, like movies or something) to associate McDonald's with the positive traits people perceived in other products. Maybe if they targeted their efforts at children, in order to bring in families and indoctrinate consumers as early as possible.
I actually have no problem with any of this. They're just making a product for people to enjoy. Just because they're running data sets, tests, and using social "science" (bah) to maximize products... so what? What makes that worse than building a product based on your intuition that happens to appeal to people as well on these lines?
I think Zynga is a foul company. I think their product has a net societal cost, and I think the crap they pulled on some of their employees prior to IPO is unconscionable. But I think this aversion to using psychology to optimize your product is misplaced. Nobody is getting hypnotized here. They are just using every tool in their arsenal to make their product perform as well as possible. They do this in an unashamedly metric-based way. Every product you encounter in life attempts to influence and manipulate you. The scientific approach just happens to be very good at optimizing processes.
Last point in this rant... I do believe Zynga makes most of their money off the weak and the crazies who will put thousands of dollars they can't afford into their farmville farm. I do believe that is morally repugnant, and it's well within their power to stop that (which I'm sure they'll never do). I just don't think the design of their games is an issue... it's their billing.
