A Happy Meal is a kids' meal usually sold at the American fast food restaurant chain McDonald's since June 1979. A small toy or book is included with the food, both of which are usually contained in a red cardboard box with a yellow smiley face and the McDonald's logo. The packaging and toy are frequently part of a marketing tie-in to an existing television series, film or toyline.
Cheetos is a crunchy corn puff snack brand made by Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo. Fritos creator Charles Elmer Doolin invented Cheetos in 1948, and began national distribution in the United States. The initial success of Cheetos was a contributing factor to the merger between The Frito Company and H.W. Lay & Company in 1961 to form Frito-Lay. In 1965 Frito-Lay became a subsidiary of The Pepsi-Cola Company, forming PepsiCo, the current owner of the Cheetos brand.
Chester Cheetah is a fictional character and the official mascot for Frito-Lay's Cheetos brand snacks as well as Chester's Snacks which consists of flavored fries, popcorn and puffcorn.
The Burger King is a king character used as the primary mascot for the fast-food restaurant chain of the same name. The first iteration of the Burger King was part of a sign at the first Burger King restaurant in Miami, Florida, in 1955. Later signs showed the King sitting on a "burger throne" as well as atop the BK sign while holding a beverage. In the early 1970s, Burger King started using a small and animated version of the King in its children's advertising, voiced by Allen Swift. In 1976, the original animated King was replaced by the "Marvelous Magical Burger King" which was a red-bearded and Tudor-era king who ruled the Burger King Kingdom and performed magic tricks that were mostly sleight-of-hand but sometimes relied on camera tricks or involved his "Magic Ring" which could summon copious amounts of food. The Burger King Kingdom advertisements were discontinued in the late 1980s in favor of the BK Kids Club Gang and other advertising programs.
YouTube is an American online video sharing platform owned by Google. Accessible worldwide, YouTube launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States, it is the second most visited website in the world, after Google Search. YouTube has more than 2.5 billion monthly users, who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos every day. As of May 2019, videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and as of 2021, there were approximately 14 billion videos in total.
When the predecessor of international fast food restaurant chain Burger King (BK) first opened in 1953, its menu predominantly consisted of hamburgers, French fries, soft drinks, milkshakes, and desserts. After being acquired by its Miami, Florida franchisees and renamed in 1954, BK began expanding its menu by adding the Whopper sandwich in 1957, and has since added non-beef items such as chicken, fish, and vegetarian offerings, including salads and meatless sandwiches. Other additions include a breakfast menu and beverages such as Icees, juices, and bottled waters. As the company expanded both inside and outside the United States, it introduced localized versions of its products that conform to regional tastes and cultural or religious beliefs. To generate additional sales, BK occasionally introduces limited-time offers of special versions of its products, or brings out completely new products intended for either long- or short-term sales. Not all of these products and services have been successful; in 1992, Burger King introduced limited table service featuring special dinner platters, but this concept failed to generate interest and was discontinued.
Toy advertising is the promotion of toys through a variety of media. Advertising campaigns for toys have been criticized for trading on children's naivete and for turning children into premature consumers. Advertising to children is usually regulated to ensure that it meets defined standards of honesty and decency. These rules vary from country to country, with some going as far as banning all advertisements that are directed at children.
During 1999 and 2000, Burger King and the Consumer Product Safety Commission held an effort to recall plastic containers resembling Poké Balls in the United States after it was determined they presented a suffocation hazard.
A haul video is a video recording posted to the Internet in which a person discusses items that they recently purchased, sometimes going into detail about their experiences during the purchase and the cost of the items they bought. The posting of haul videos was a growing trend between 2008 and 2016. Often the items bought are books, clothing, groceries, household goods, makeup, or jewellery.
Prizes are promotional items—small toys, games, trading cards, collectables, and other small items of nominal value—found in packages of brand-name retail products that are included in the price of the product with the intent to boost sales, similar to toys in kid's meals. Collectable prizes produced in series are used extensively—as a loyalty marketing program—in food, drink, and other retail products to increase sales through repeat purchases from collectors. Prizes have been distributed through bread, candy, cereal, cheese, chips, crackers, laundry detergent, margarine, popcorn, and soft drinks. The types of prizes have included comics, fortunes, jokes, key rings, magic tricks, models, pin-back buttons, plastic mini-spoons, puzzles, riddles, stickers, temporary tattoos, tazos, trade cards, trading cards, and small toys. Prizes are sometimes referred to as "in-pack" premiums, although historically the word "premium" has been used to denote an item that is not packaged with the product and requires a proof of purchase and/or a small additional payment to cover shipping and/or handling charges.
Mac n' Cheetos are a deep-fried macaroni and cheese product based on the Frito-Lay snack Cheetos. Mac n' Cheetos were introduced in late June 2016 and sold at Burger King in limited supplies. The original product contained five pieces and was served with a side of ranch dressing. Today, Mac n' Cheetos are available frozen at grocery stores around the United States.
Elsagate is a controversy surrounding videos on YouTube and YouTube Kids that were categorized as "child-friendly", but contained themes inappropriate for children. These videos often featured fictional characters from family-oriented media, sometimes via crossovers, used without legal permission. The term itself is a combination of Elsa, a character from Disney's Frozen known for frequently appearing in such videos, and "-gate", a suffix for scandals, with the analogy originating from the Watergate scandal. The controversy also included channels that focused on real-life children, such as Toy Freaks, that raised concern about possible child abuse.
Ryan's World is a children's YouTube channel for children aged 2–6 featuring Ryan Kaji along with his mother, father, and twin sisters.
A YouTuber is a type of social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006, and subsequently appeared in the 2006 Time Person of the Year issue.
PocketWatch, Inc. is a digital media studio that declares that its specialization is turning young stars on YouTube into global franchises. Its offices and studio are based in Culver City, California. The company was founded in 2012 by Chris M. Williams. It is funded by Third Wave Digital in addition to other investors and angels such as Jon Landau, UTA Ventures, the venture arm of United Talent Agency (UTA), Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Jacquemin
Ryan's Mystery Playdate is an American children's television series created by Albie Hecht and produced by the company PocketWatch that aired on Nickelodeon from April 19, 2019 to April 16, 2023. The series is based on the Ryan's World YouTube channel, which signed an advertising deal with PocketWatch in 2017.
Lewis George Hilsenteger, known professionally as Unbox Therapy, is a Canadian unboxing and technology YouTuber. As of October 2023, The channel has 21.2 million subscribers, and its videos have received over 4.56 billion views.
Since its founding in 2005, the American video-sharing website YouTube has been faced with a growing number of privacy issues, including allegations that it allows users to upload unauthorized copyrighted material and allows personal information from young children to be collected without their parents' consent.
A kid influencer is someone under the age of 18 who has built or is building a presence on social media platforms creating content to generate views and engagements, that is often sponsored. Kid influencers operate in a similar fashion to adult influencers; they share their hobbies and personal activities with their audiences, while also marketing products that align with their brand through paid partnerships. Many social media platforms have an age minimum requiring users to be at least 13 years of age or older to hold their own accounts. This requirement results in many of the pages being run alongside the parent/guardian of the child when they are under the age requirement.
