The Green Party has accused McDonald's of hijacking a new healthy eating campaign by planting its own marketing device in the advertising.
Green MP Sue Kedgley said the cartoon character fronting the campaign, Willie Munchright, was a McDonald's character.
"It is completely inappropriate to be using a McDonald's marketing icon to informchildren about healthy eating habits," Ms Kedgley said.
McDonald's spokesman Liam Jeory said Willie Munchright was a character run as part of a nutrition series developed independently in the United States.
The company had bought the rights to Willie Munchright for a nutrition campaign it then sponsored in the US and other countries.
"There is not a specific nutrition campaign for children in New Zealand. This is something the Greens and others have harped on about for years," Mr Jeory said.
To get such a campaign started in New Zealand, McDonald's had brought the character and commercials to New Zealand, removed all commercial branding and had the scripts worked on by New Zealand nutrition experts to make sure they were appropriate.
The commercials were then re-recorded with New Zealand voices and air time was given by Television New Zealand.
The result was that a nutrition campaign could be up and running quickly at little cost.
"We have gifted a programme, removed all branding and given it a fast start ...
"I don't know whether Sue [Kedgley] knows which way is up.
"On the one hand they want education and then on the other hand when they get education, they don't want it."
Ms Kedgley said the "hijacking" suggested the Food Industry Accord campaign was a public relations ploy to avoid regulation rather an attempt to reduce obesity.
