I'm not lovin' the Olympic junk-food pedlars

Everyone loves Cindy Klassen. And for good reason, I'm sure. Why, I'm quite certain that if I ever met Klassen in person I'd find her charming and delightful and I wouldn't stuff an Egg McMuffin down her throat.

That's just a nasty little thought I have whenever I see that damned commercial.

You know the one. Canada's most decorated Olympian, our national treasure, is sitting in an airport departure lounge. She's eating an Egg McMuffin. A teenager approaches. "Cindy Klassen?!" the nervous girl says. She's also holding an Egg Mc-Muffin! It's her favourite, she says. "Me, too!" Klassen enthuses. The girl works at McDonald's and she's going to the Olympics to work in the athletes' village. She's so excited!

The ad ends in a punchline that is about as funny as most punchlines in commercials are. Then the golden arches appear along with the Olympic logos and a declaration that McDonald's is the "official restaurant" of the 2010 games. Finally, a piano plays a few notes from the I'm Lovin' It jingle.

I'm not lovin' it. I'm hatin' it. The purpose of celebrity endorsements is to extend the positive feeling the audience has for the celebrity to the product being pitched, but I've discovered that it can also work in reverse: My loathing for McDonald's has now extended to Cindy Klassen. This is quite a breakthrough. Some academic should write it up in a marketing journal.

The official restaurant of the 2010 games is no health-food emporium. In fact, the junk served by McDonald's to "billions and billions," as the signs now say, is a significant cause of the obesity and obesity-related disease now plaguing Western nations.

The same is true of Coca-Cola, which has been sponsoring the Olympics since 1928.

Governments are spending huge and growing amounts of money coping with the damage inflicted by this plague. And they're struggling to figure out how they can get people -- especially kids -- to eat better and exercise more.

And that's where Olympic officials jump in.

The answer, they say, is elite sports. Olympic athletes are the living embodiment of exercise, athleticism, and vigorous health. When everyone watches, everyone gets the message. Best of all, kids get the message. When somebody like Cindy Klassen wins gold, everybody cheers and the kids look up to them.

The conclusion is obvious: Give athletes the money they need to own the podium and become role models and watch the country get skinny as a bear coming out of hibernation. This pitch has been effective. Governments everywhere funnel huge amounts of public money into the Olympics, through various channels, and one of the key rationales is the Olympics promotes healthy living.

This policy has at least made the Olympics healthy. Today, there is nothing like the Olympic brand. It's universal. It stands for excellence and idealism, youth and vitality. That's magic.

Enter Coca-Cola and McDonald's. Sure, being an official sponsor costs them a pretty penny. But they know the ultimate result will be stronger brands that deliver increased sales over the long term.

So to sum up: Governments give public money to the Olympics, in part to encourage healthy lifestyles, and this money helps make the Olympics a brand so powerful that McDonald's and Coca-Cola pay to associate themselves with it in order to strengthen their own brands and improve sales of junk that contributes to the spiralling rates of obesity and obesity-related diseases which governments are fighting by spending large and growing amounts of money on, among other things, the Olympics.

If public policy were a competitive sport, this performance would not own the podium.

What makes this spectacle amazing is the contrast between the haplessness of governments and the ruthlessness of corporate marketers. Right now, in every McDonald's, there is a large display of children's toys based on the official mascots of the Vancouver Games. There are figure skaters, goalies, and ski-jumpers. Personally, I like the one with Miga and Quatchi in a bobsleigh. It's adorable!

But I have to bend over to look because the display is at the eye level of young children, who can be counted on to bug their parents for a high-calorie, sodium-saturated, fat-laden Happy Meal so they can play with Miga and Quatchi.

That's good for sales today. But as anyone who has ever read the psychological literature knows, the positive mental associations created by this pleasant experience will influence the feelings, perceptions, and food choices of these kids years and even decades from now. And you can be quite certain that corporate marketers have read the psychological literature.

It's the same with Cindy Klassen and the other Olympic heroes billed on the company's website as "Team McDonald's." They're good for sales today. But more importantly, they strengthen the brand and a stronger brand means that, in the future, more junk will go in more mouths. And a lot of those mouths belong to children.

That's ruthlessness. I could even admire the sheer chutzpah of it, moral qualms aside, if it weren't for the fact my kids are McDonald's target market. That makes me a little angry. And then I remember Cindy Klassen is making a good buck pitching crap. To kids. My kids. And that makes me want to stuff an Egg McMuffin down her throat. Not that I would, you understand. I'm sure she's a perfectly lovely person.