Burger King’s recent Neopets kids’ meal promotion encourages kids to join in the toy maker’s online virtual world. But do children really understand what that means?
My son, age 5 ½, doesn’t. He excitedly ran in the room after seeing a commercial for the Neopets promotion and informed me that our next weekend fast food meal was going to be at BK, because not only did you get a Neopets plastic or plush toy but you received a special gift as well from Neopets.com.
I was skeptical. If you had to go to the Web site to get the gift, it was most likely a screensaver or something “virtual.” My young son, however, was convinced that he was going to get some sort of real, valuable present that he could hold in his hot little hands and would not hear otherwise. How he thought it was going to magically pop out of my computer screen, I’m not quite sure.
That Saturday, we trundled off to Burger King and picked up our food. We dutifully saved our paper bags with the ‘secret codes’ printed on them and the boy and I went home and logged onto the site.
“What do I get? What do I get? What do I get?” my son asked excitedly.
I went through the registration process—oh yeah, you have to sign up to redeem your code—and for our trouble we’re awarded with a virtual cloak our newly created virtual pet, along with some Neocash we can spend on the site.
My son is disappointed—at this point, he doesn’t really get the whole virtual world thing any more than I do. But boy howdy, did he like spending the Neocash. We browse through the store of virtual goodies and he decides to buy his virtual pet a virtual pet.
“What else can I buy?” he asks eagerly.
“Nothing, that’s it,” I tell him. We’ve spent our Neocash, and if you want more, you have to buy it, with real cash. And Mommy just isn’t going to do that.
Call me old fashioned, but I’m just not a virtual world kind of girl. I’ve got enough to do in the physical world—I can’t be bothered to set up a virtual life too.
The BK promotion was a masterful stroke to get kids who weren’t already into the Neopets fad to try it out. Thankfully, after a day or two of visits, my son forgot about it and moved on to the next promotion du jour, McDonald’s Batman Lego Happy Meal tie-in.
It’s just as well. Since I wouldn’t cough up cash for more food, his poor Neopet has probably starved to death anyway. Too bad he doesn’t like spam. I’ve got plenty of that in my virtual stash.
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