One of my enduring memories of the nineties is of the tatty little windup toys which came with McDonalds happy meals, usually in a tie-in with another brand, such as a film. It appears that these cheap little toys beloved of fast food-adoring children worldwide are going 2.0, with McDonalds' announcement that in their latest tie-in with the forthcoming animation Star Wars: Clone Wars, there will be integration between the happy meal giveaways and content in McDonalds' virtual world, launched recently.
One of the frankly bizarre-looking toys (that's Anakin below, apparently) will be given away with each happy meal, along with codes to unlock 'top-secret Jedi quests' in the McDonalds virtual world. And that's very clever; Club Penguin have shown that kids are able to either pay for or persuade their parents to pay for subscriptions to unlock extra content in virtual worlds, suggesting that the 'secret codes' will be just as appealing to many children as the head attached to a spaceship. McDonalds have got themselves a good deal here, with access to a great brand with which to create content for their new virtual world. Somehow jedi quests sound more fun than cooking burgers as virtual world activity. Star Wars have also done well though, with their virtual world marketing campaign for the new film likely to be far more successful than many other efforts. It seems very likely that this sort of tie-up between physical and virtual will continue.
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