No Happy Meals here. Parent company Yum! Brands announced last week it was deep-sixing the kiddie menu at Taco Bell, officially abandoning plastic toys in favor of giveaways like a custom Speedo or rings that spell out the brand’s name. While financial considerations were a motivating factor — the company calls kids meals sales “insignificant,” and it can charge more for adult meals, to boot — CEO Greg Creed also acknowledged that catering to the juice-box set just isn’t projecting the kind of image the company wants. “This is about positioning the brand for millennials,” he said. “It’s fairly inconsistent for an edgy, twentysomething brand to offer kids meals.”
Millennials Wanted: 10 Classic Brands Being Tweaked to Appeal to Young Consumers
With a nip here and a tuck there, Madison Avenue is putting new faces on old brands that young shoppers tend to disdain as, well, just too old-fashioned.