Case Study Instructions

MKT319 Spring 2023

1. Review the Ethical Challenge on page 140-141 of your text.

• You will complete this project in your groups; how you split up the work is up to you, but you must turn in one complete paper that sounds as if it was written by one person.  You will lose points for incomplete answers and choppy writing/formatting; you may use business formatting with bullets and subheads or write as an essay/paper format.

• Use the ethical decision-making framework on page 19 of your text to analyze the situation.  Answer the questions with the case study (expectations summarized and explained below), and be thorough in your analysis; additional research is strongly encouraged to support your points and arguments.  Be sure to back up any statements or arguments you make with supporting evidence and research points.

1. Question one: “Analyze McDonald’s efforts to market Happy Meals that contain free toys to children.” Review history of the Happy Meal and current McDonald’s Happy Meal promotions for background.  Then take the decision to market free Happy Meal toys to children, and its potential relationship to childhood obesity, through the ethical decision-making framework and include your analysis in your paper.  You can either pretend you are a decision-maker for McDonald’s reviewing the decision to include toys, or you can be an “outsider” analyzing the inclusion of toys in Happy Meals.  Include discussion of all steps of the framework.  You may call out the steps as subheads in this question and use bullets to make it clear you understand and have used all the steps in your analysis.
   1. Question two: “Find a company or organization that you think is using online marketing tools to reduce the trend in childhood obesity.  Describe what the company is doing to lessen childhood obesity in the United States.” Analyze what the company or organization you find is currently doing compared to McDonald’s to help lessen childhood obesity.  Are they doing anything better, or is McDonald’s making more positive steps?  You may use any active company or organization you choose for this comparison, including other restaurants, food manufacturers, athletic gear, non-profit organizations, sports related companies/organizations, etc.  Please make sure you use a current, active nonprofit or for-profit company.  You should use more of an essay style of writing for this question.
   1. Question three: “Can online marketers promote healthy choices and still be profitable?  Explain your reasoning and provide examples for why or why not.” Use examples from the company you used for question two if it was for profit, as well as other examples and supporting research you find.  Avoid nonprofit examples for this question, as it specifically asks the profitability question.  Can marketers make money if they promote healthy choices for kids?  Be sure to use examples, evidence and data to support your answer.  You should use more of an essay style of writing for this question.

• Format, length and submission guidelines:
  • Typed, 12 pt. font
  • Word documents only
  • Double spaced
  • 1” margins
  • Length: 3+ pages
  • Submitted through BlueLine by deadline – one submission per group.
  • Be sure to use proper APA format for any citations, including citations from your textbook.

Grading Rubric for Case Study (worth 50 points)