From Side Dish to Center of the Plate - The Evolution of McDonald’s Social Media

On January 20, Dori Moss, account executive for Hayslett Group, attended the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) luncheon, “From Side Dish to Center of the Plate - The Evolution of McDonald’s Social Media.” The session was led by Heather Oldani, director of U.S. communications for McDonald’s Corporation. Although McDonald’s has iconic power with its golden arches and mascot Ronald, they are always striving to increase brand power and customer loyalty. The company has recently shifted from mainstream to multi-stream outreach, in terms of accessing customers and increasing market penetration. Blogs, chat rooms, podcasts, Facebook, message boards, Twitter – all these social media outlets have played a role in creating a successful marketing campaign for McDonald’s Corporation.

The company set out to tackle the social media world beginning with their February 2007 YouTube video that featured a new honey mustard snack wrap. In addition to releasing a consistent message, McDonald’s focused on building a consistent team throughout the collaboration of the following departments: communication, media, creative and insights. One campaign, highlighting chicken products, centered around their Web site, www.whatcamefirst.com. Creative aspects of the site, like a section that asked for chicken dance submissions and a free sample day, generated great results: 45,000 dance-off submissions, 150,000 unique visitors, 1,500 blog posts and seven million free sandwiches. Another campaign implemented MySpace to revitalize the Big Mac brand and its infamous chant. By combining on- and offline communication vehicles - radio, Web site and print - they were able to maximize awareness and measure ROI with more than 1,000 submissions to their online Big Mac chant-off challenge.

To help stir interest in the company, McDonald’s explored another campaign route that granted customers a backstage pass to the fast food industry. For this effort, they looked to ambassadors to help promote their brand. Two groups stood out as a good fit - moms and employees. McDonald’s identified six mothers to receive a behind-the-scenes look at McDonald’s, including trips to suppliers and exclusive looks at food preparation and selection. The result was the creation of www.mcdonaldsmom.com. To date, the site has had 83,000 unique visitors and is 15,000 members strong. With the employee ambassador group, the approach was virtual involvement behind-the-scenes versus actual tours. A corporate intranet with opportunities to blog, download information and receive prizes for participation was created for North American employees that resulted in 14,000 regular online users. More than 60 percent of all McDonald’s employees have now opted in for e-mails and texts regarding McDonald’s, revealing their connection to and interest in the corporation. Empowering and communicating with employees makes for happy, engaged staff, and who could be better to serve as ambassadors than the people who work there?

Final Thoughts

A few tips regarding social media penetration:

· use a strategic approach;
· employ a fun and informal tone with messaging;
· be transparent in all communications;
· leverage online and traditional tactics together - not simply one or the other; and
· create alignment in your company in order to execute a sound plan.

The result could be expanded market penetration and increased brand awareness. Ronald has come a long way baby!