Welcome back to the Brand Marketing Spotlight, where we analyze the campaigns and techniques of the world’s most successful companies. Today, we’re looking at how McDonald’s marketing strategy is helping set the standard for fast food industry transparency.
More from PostFunnel on Brand Marketing Spotlight
Girl Scouts Marketing: How Local Cookie Sales Become Viral Sensations
Of all fast food brands, McDonald’s is one chain everyone loves to hate. Even its most regular customers acknowledge the restaurant has a poor reputation, regardless of how many burgers it serves.
Become the best CRMer you can:
CRM Hack: measuring the right marketing campaign KPIs
How To: use loyalty data to power retention and reactivation
See how brands take their email deliverability to the max
Get inspired: great sports betting campaigns to follow
Today’s customers are increasingly health-conscious, especially among millennial and Gen Z demographics. Meanwhile, the public perceives fast-food restaurants as low-quality businesses that serve cheap meals to undiscerning visitors. Traditional chains cannot survive on a business-as-usual strategy.
In response, McDonald’s is quietly implementing transparent marketing initiatives that engage its customers and convert its most hostile critics. Let’s shine the Brand Marketing Spotlight on McDonald’s to find out what’s changed.
From “I’m loving it” to Super Size Me
McDonald’s was established in 1940, but it wasn’t until Ray Kroc purchased the franchise in 1955 that it became a genuine phenomenon. At this time, McDonald’s was a family-friendly burger restaurant that stood in contrast to inconsistent diner experiences of the era. It quickly became one of the most successful businesses on the planet — food-based or otherwise — prompting other chains to replicate its business model.
From the beginning, innovative marketing strategies were key to McDonald’s success. For decades, the restaurant held the highest ad spend of any fast-food chain, spending upwards of $2 billion per year in the modern era. Commercial campaigns generally emphasized the McDonald’s experience over products and rarely made comparisons with competitors. Combined with effective branding strategies and corporate partnerships, McDonald’s became the uncontested leader of its market.
By the 1980s, however, McDonald’s was losing public sentiment and goodwill. It all began when self-made millionaire Phil Sokolof took out full-page newspaper ads criticizing McDonald’s as part of an anti-cholesterol campaign. Shortly afterward, London Greenpeace published negative leaflets about the chain’s environmental and animal rights record. In 2003, the Merriam-Webster dictionary officially recognized the term “McJob” as “a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement” — much to the chagrin of McDonald’s executives.
But nothing compared to the mass popularity of Super Size Me. In this 2004 documentary, host Morgan Spurlock dedicated himself to eating nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days, gaining 24 pounds and a 13% BMI increase in the process. The film received widespread accolades almost overnight, including an Academy Award nomination. Follow-up research failed to recreate Spurlock’s results, but the damage was already done.
McDonald’s faced a public relations crisis in the wake of Super Size Me, ultimately prompting the retiring of the namesake meal size. Yet that didn’t stop an onslaught of unverified adverse nutritional claims, the most popular being that Happy Meals don’t rot. And by the time fact-checking websites like Snopes debunk one accusation, the public has already moved onto the next.
Mcdonald’s Response? A Transparent Marketing Strategy
Whatever you think of McDonald’s meals, the brand certainly isn’t taking this perception lightly. Over the past two decades, the fast-food chain made great strides to address fears and modernize its image. McDonald’s became an early adopter of publicly available nutritional information for its food products, well in advance of competitors who advertised calorie counts. It also began to offer salad and fruit options with meals in an attempt to diversify its menu. Most recently, McDonald’s adopted the plant-based Beyond Meat patty to draw in a growing vegetarian and vegan market.
But the real attempt to change minds comes from a McDonald’s marketing strategy rooted in transparency. To regain trust, McDonald’s knew it had to be upfront about consumer fears instead of hiding uncomfortable details. After addressing immediate issues, the chain could put forward a new public image that represented delicious food and sustainability.
Of course, even McDonald’s struggles to deploy this messaging at scale to millions of customers in the US alone. To succeed, messaging must be consistent across a multitude of campaigns:
- McDonald’s launched an FAQ web page called “Our Food. Your Questions.” This page addresses common misconceptions about McDonald’s food and clarifies how products are made. For example, customers can find out that “pink slime” is not an ingredient in burgers and Chicken McNuggets.
- To commemorate “Our Food. Your Questions,” McDonald’s produced a video campaign where former MythBusters host Grant Imahara visited restaurants and food production sites. The series debuted on McDonald’s Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube social channels.
- McDonald’s became an early adopter of influencer advertising by sponsoring a “What’s in McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets?” video. Hosted by YouTube star Raphael Gomes, this video countered myths about the way McDonald’s produces its McNuggets.
- The “Always Working” campaign highlighted ways that McDonald’s tries to make its traditional products healthier for customers. The Happy Meal, featured as a primary example, reduced salt content by 47.3% since 2003.
- McDonald’s Canada’s beef sustainability campaign took viewers to Albertan farms to show how cattle are raised. The initiative’s messaging highlighted the health of beef cattle and improvements to environmental efficiency.
Mcdonald’s And the Future Of Fast Food
While McDonald’s troubles aren’t over yet, its marketing strategy does seem to be bearing fruit. One study of fast-food and casual restaurant customers found that the House of Ronald was best-positioned in terms of same-store sales and food traffic. McDonald’s also managed to slightly increase its standing on the American Customer Satisfaction Index following the release of Super Size Me.
Unfortunately, even with higher sales from regulars, McDonald’s still faces a slowly declining customer base. Undeterred, the company is increasing spending on digital technology, online sales, and targeted advertising to reach modern audiences. According to a Monday (Nov. 22) press release, customers visiting the Golden Arches in Singapore can pay for their fast food orders online, at the drive-thru, in-store or via self-ordering kiosks with mobile payment app GrabPay and accrue points via GrabRewards as part of a collaborative effort. In addition, McDonald also teamed up with IBM to develop and implement automated order-taking (AOT) capabilities for its drive-thru windows. The chain began running trials of AOT at 10 drive-thru eateries in Chicago in June of 2021(Pymnts). The famous fast food chain is clearly putting a lot of thought into its marketing efforts and customer experience.
Whether you love or hate Happy Meals, it’s impossible to deny that McDonald’s is making a Herculean effort to engage customers and critics alike. While it’s unclear whether these efforts will fully restore McDonald’s reputation, they have increased brand perceptions enough to show promise. Emerging food services should take note — with transparency, one can go a long way towards endearing themselves to customers.