Mickey, Meet Mickey D: Disney May Nibble at Fries
Don’t be surprised to see the Golden Arches in the Magic Kingdom.
Signaling another bit of synergy in the strengthened marketing pact between McDonald’s Corp. and the Walt Disney Co., Disneyland has been polling park visitors about the prospect of selling McDonald’s food inside the Anaheim theme park.
But forget about Big Macs for now. Early discussions have centered around sales of a single McDonald’s product--French fries--rather than the opening of a full-service Mickey D’s inside Disneyland.
“We talked about McDonald’s French fries for an hour and a half,” said Adrienne Krock, a Disneyland annual pass holder who was paid $75 to join a recent park-sponsored focus group measuring visitors’ appetite for the fast-food fare.
Disneyland officials admit they’ve been holding the French fry surveys but say they have no immediate plans to offer the McDonald’s signature product in the park. “We do focus groups on all sorts of things,” Disneyland spokesman John McClintock said. “Right now there are no plans to offer McDonald’s food at Disneyland.”
If so, that’s news to McDonald’s officials, who say test marketing of their fries could begin at Disneyland as early as next month. “Disneyland appeals to families, and those are our customers also,” McDonald’s spokeswoman Rebecca Caruso said. “From that perspective, this makes a lot of sense.”
Caruso says McDonald’s has been working closely with Disney to train park workers in the fast-food giant’s system for cooking those famous golden fries. She said plans call for the fries to be sold for a six-month trial period at a single location within the park in an effort to gauge visitor reaction.
That pretty much jibes with what Krock experienced in her focus group. Krock says her 10-member panel was shown prototype French fry boxes emblazoned with the McDonald’s logo. In addition, the group viewed drawings of revamped menu boards for the Harbour Galley, a Critter Country seafood restaurant where Disneyland is considering serving the fries.
The groundwork for such an arrangement was laid last year when McDonald’s and Disney forged a 10-year promotional alliance linking the companies’ marketing strategies worldwide.
McDonald’s has since announced plans to open restaurants in three of Disney’s Florida holdings: the Blizzard Beach water park, the Downtown Disney shopping and entertainment strip and in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, a new live animal theme park slated to open in early 1998. Caruso said McDonald’s will also begin test marketing French fries at Walt Disney World in Orlando.
Analysts say it was only a matter of time before McDonald’s food surfaced inside Disney theme parks. But Krock isn’t so sure it’s a good idea.
“I don’t go to Disneyland to eat at McDonald’s,” she said. “I go to Disneyland to get away from all that.”
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Marla Dickerson covers tourism for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-5670 and at marla.dickerson@latimes.com.
