It’s a craze that had kids, parents and even grandparents buying McDonald’s Happy Meals — and it wasn’t for the cheeseburger and fries.

It was the Teenie Beanie Baby promotion that had McDonald’s nationally selling the toys at 100 per second.

Businesses have so much competition that they must constantly try to find ways to get ahead of the “other guy.” As a result, many fast food restaurants have gone to using promotions in their children’s meals to attract customers.

Tom Decarlo, a marketing professor at Iowa State, said companies such as McDonald’s use promotions “to increase brand loyalty and provide a feel-good attitude towards their product.”

Decarlo said studies have been done which show that restaurants who use tie-ins with movies to promote their product do have some effect on the consumer. However, he said that the effectiveness of a promotion depends on the market and other factors.

Decarlo said that if a promotion doesn’t go over very well it won’t generate any long-term effects on consumers.

“It doesn’t create brand loyalty and therefore is more negative,” he said.

Decarlo said if the promotion exceeds the company’s expectations and the company can’t produce enough for demand it can also have a negative effect on the company.

“Estimating demand is critical,” Decarlo said. “If there isn’t enough supply for the demand it can erode brand loyalty to some degree because they can’t provide what they said they would.”

Decarlo used Pepsi’s 1996 Get Stuff promotion as an example of one that exceeded the company’s expectations. He said Pepsi lost $50 million because of this promotion.

“Pepsi backed off the advertising for this promotion because the revenue wasn’t exceeding the money spent on the merchandise,” Decarlo said.

“McDonald’s was one of the first restaurants to use promotional tie-ins,” Decarlo said, “but now Burger King and Hardee’s are also using promotions.”

Decarlo said Burger King tried several different promotions that failed, but have now “found their niche.”

Burger King has a Kid’s Club that is aimed at children 6- to 7-years old, Decarlo said. He said it is staying away from targeting 2- to 6-year olds that McDonald’s dominates.

Renee Pepper, manager of an Ames Burger King, said kids can send in a postcard to register for the club and then get a membership card in the mail.

“Once a year things are sent out to the members,” Pepper said. “Parents receive coupons for things like fries and pop, and the the kids get things to do.”

Pepper said members receive a free meal for their birthday.

When children order a kid’s meal from Burger King, they also receive some sort of toy or figurine. Pepper said sometimes the toy is a Kid’s Club figurine, but not always.

“Disney [toys] were always very popular,” she said.

Decarlo said recently Burger King invested $40 million in “Jurassic Park II The Lost World.”

The Jurassic Park II promotion is currently being sold at Burger King. Dinosaur watches are being sold and a figurine from “Land Before Time” is included in the kid’s meal.

McDonald’s last promotion, Teenie Beanie Babies, quadrupled the Happy Meals sales in Ames, said Ames McDonald’s area supervisor Michelle Rupiper.

McDonald’s hired Ty Inc., the maker of Beanie Babies, to produce 100 million miniatures for their Happy Meals promotion. The toys were to be sold at 12,000 McDonald’s restaurants. The promotion was to last for five weeks, starting April 11, with two different toys to be released each week. A week into the promotion, McDonald’s had to change the date the promotion would end because of the high demand for the Teenie Beanie Babies.

“I think McDonald’s knew there would be a lot of consumer interest, but not to this level,” Rupiper said.

Rupiper said the Ames McDonald’s sold out of the toys early. She said during the peak of the promotion, local restaurants would receive 50 to 100 calls a day asking about the Teenie Beanie Babies.

Cheryl Preyer, McDonald’s marketing supervisor, said it would have been nice if they could have extended the promotion longer.

“It far exceeded anything we dreamed of. . . it blew the doors off,” Preyer said.

Preyer said McDonald’s produced more Teenie Beanie Babies than any Happy Meal toy ever before but went through the supply incredibly fast. She said the “101 Dalmatians” promotion in December 1996 also ran out early, but not as soon as the Teenie Beanie babies.

She said the demand was so great on the McDonald’s restaurants that people from the regional office went out to stores to help serve the customers.

“It was really exciting,” Preyer said.

Preyer wasn’t able to go out and help because she was away in meetings, but she said she would have liked to.

As of now, there are no future plans to revive the Teenie Beanie promotion. Preyer said that such information is not released until it is definite.

“I’d love to see it [working with Ty Inc.] happen again,” Preyer said.

Ty’s Beanie Babies are so popular that there are Internet clubs and chat lines for them. There are also postings to buy, sell and trade the soft, plush toys. The McDonald’s Teenie Beanie Babies are now also being bought, sold and traded over the Internet.

This promotion was in such high demand that people were buying several Happy Meals just for the Teenie Beanie Baby inside and would throw out the meal.

Many McDonald’s restaurants limited the number of Happy Meals a person could buy. Some restaurants, but not those in Ames, had people wanting to buy up to 100 Happy Meals.

Decarlo said if the consumer is weighing the decision to buy the product for the product or to buy it just for the promotion it could be a back-fire to the company.

“If the consumer is just buying the product for the promotion it is not adding to the value of their product,” Decarlo said.

He said if this happens, the promotion could be considered a failure to a certain extent.

“I would think it would be negative to some degree if they were just buying it for the toy,” he said.

The McDonald’s display cases for Teenie Beanie babies were also being sold and auctioned off for charity. A radio station in Crystal Lake, IL, auctioned off one display case for $760. The money went to a children’s charity.

Preyer had a display case sitting on her desk in the McDonald’s regional office. She said when children walked by, they would stop and stare at it “like it was just the greatest thing.”