1.2 billion Happy Meals are ordered at McDonald’s yearly.
3.2 million per day.
14.5% of all orders made in the United States.
1.5 billion toys are given yearly.
10 million dollars a day is the US revenue on Happy Meals alone.

McDonald’s announced recently that they would begin selling adult happy meals, which would come in an updated packaging, have larger serving sizes and even come with a toy geared for adults.

Many people made fun of this, calling it proof millennials suffer from Peter Pan syndrome, but here’s why as a business move, it strangely makes sense.

First up, advertising.

McDonald’s pays movie studios for the right to put their companies toys in happy meals. It works so well for studios that in the 2000s, Disney was making 100 million dollars yearly off its exclusive with McDonald’s, which they pulled in 2006 over fear of attachment with childhood obesity.

Studio’s also love working with McDonald’s, because it’s them getting paid to have an upcoming film advertised. Focusing on adult happy meals continues this, but gets them worth something much more. Adults.

Children and teenagers don’t get very high CPM rates from advertisers, because that customer base has no money. It’s been historically so bad that Nickelodeon once researched times of the day a parent was most likely to be with their child, to factor that in and try to get ads for adults.

Adults are noticeably higher, where mobile ads normally run CPM rates, which could be 3-4x higher kids/teens.

What makes this interesting is McDonald’s has in the past tried to organize deals with studio’s to get some money to recoup ad spending for campaigns which feature both McDonalds and the movie/show being promoted.

This hasn’t ever worked, but possibly catering to an older demographic can improve those odds.

Second, collectibles.

Over 50% of people to purchase the last Pokemon mainline game were over the age of 18. It’s also estimated that about 75-80% of Pokemon card buyers are over 18 and many buy them claiming it as an investment. Call it a product of people taking financial advice from to certainly trustworthy Logan Paul and Gary Vaynerchuk, but for good or bad, it’s happening.

McDonald’s has had a long standing partnership with the Pokemon Company, regularly giving away Pokemon cards in happy meals, which are reported to be the best selling ones. The hope of those cards eventually being collectibles is such a big thing, McDonald’s had issues when adults would order 10+ happy meals at once, for the cards. There were even reports that collectors would pay McDonald’s employees to rip open the cards and give them the ones needed.

The collectors market, while probably being bad financial advice is a growing thing. McDonald’s offering toys for adult happy meals will likely have them all be potential collectors items and boost sales with millennials/gen z for that.

Three, the movie industry as a whole.

62% of people ages 18-29 are polled saying they like Marvel.
Joker made a billion dollars as a rated R movie.
Deadpool made 783 million as a rated R movie.

The movie industry has changed, where many films that’d previously be seen as kids films are now designed more for adults.

There was a time in the 1990s, where after Batman Returns came out, McDonald’s received heavy backlash for Batman happy meals toys being too scary for kids and had to redesign both the penguin and catwoman.

Today, Batman is 100% an adult franchise, where the last movie said they almost made the call for it be rated R.

With the change to action/superhero movies and comics now being bought more by adults over kids, this makes sense.

Four, moving away from kids.

Ronald McDonald was removed in 2016.
6.7 billion was how much McDonald’s spent to be less kid friendly in the mid 2010s, removing the slides and other stuff for kids.

McDonald’s as a brand made a huge effort to focus less on children, because it was turning off teens and adults.

McDonald’s is aware happy meals make money, but the stigma of happy meals might still hurt sales. Moving to adult happy meals and having things such as toys being something for all customers, it might strangely make things less weird.

Final thoughts

The complaint was this idea was done, because we have a generation of Peter Pan children. That might be true, but from the perspective of ads and the evolution of both McDonald’s and the entertainment industry, this is a good/weird idea.