the blog

McDonald’s has taken a big stride in the web games arena with a new European marketing campaign for Happy Meals.  Instead of plastic figurines, they will offer virtual toys in upcoming Happy Meals, and they will use web games to advertise them.  Fuel Industries has done a wonderful job building the game site, titled Fairies and Dragons.  The site ties together a series of games and puzzles that revolve around eight virtual toy characters: four fairies and four dragons.  In their Happy Meals, children—and many adults, I’ll wager—will receive their virtual fairy or dragon (on a CD) and some playing cards.  They can interact with the virtual toys on their computer and, of course, play all of the wonderful games on the Fairies and Dragons site.