You’d have to be living in a cave not to be aware of the now historic McDonald’s Twitter campaign launched a few days ago. If you’ve been out of it for a while, here’s the CliffsNotes version:
McDonald’s promoted a Tweet using the Twitter hashtag #McDStories that went like this: ‘When u make something w/pride, people can taste it,’ – McD potato supplier #McDStories http://t.co/HaPM5G9F‘ (source). The link is a video of McDonald’s potato supplier Frank Martinez and includes a heartwarming story about his life as a potato farmer.
Shortly thereafter, consumers from around the world ‘hijacked’ the #McDStories hashtag with, to say the least, some horrible tweets about McDonald’s food quality and overall experience. You can read the most notorious ones here at the Daily Mail and here at Business Insider.
According to McDonald’s social media director Rick Wion:
Last Thursday, we planned to use two different hashtags during a promoted trend – #meetthefarmers and #mcdstories.
While #meetthefarmers was used for the majority of the day and successful in raising awareness of the Supplier Stories campaign, #mcdstories did not go as planned. We quickly pulled #mcdstories and it was promoted for less than two hours.
Within an hour of pulling #McDStories the number of conversations about it fell off from a peak of 1600 to a few dozen. It is also important to keep those numbers in perspective. There were 72,788 mentions of McDonald’s overall that day so the traction of #McDStories was a tiny percentage (2%) of that.
With all social media campaigns, we include contingency plans should the conversation not go as planned. The ability to change midstream helped this small blip from becoming something larger.
Since that moment and for the past week, the media attention to this has been ruthless and extremely negative. Just type in McDonald’s Horror Stories into Google to see a sampling.
Rick Wion: This Fry’s For You
Go to any one of the news articles mentioned above and read the comments. There you’ll find pundit after pundit throwing McDonald’s and its social media director Rick Wion under the bus. Well, here’s what I think of that.
- If we’ve learned anything about social media, it’s that we have no control and that we HAVE TO experiment. Today I listened to Todd Blackledge, former Penn State University quarterback talk about his mentor, Joe Paterno (at Paterno’s public funeral). During his speech, he said this one saying that reminded him of JoPa: “Success is never final. Failure is never fatal.” So what if #McDStories it didn’t work out as planned? McDonald’s asked for feedback and received it, learning along the way just as Domino’s Pizza and JetBlue have learned and rebounded in there particular situations. Point = If you aren’t experimenting with social media right now, you aren’t trying. Good for Rick.
- When McDonald’s saw how negative the hashtag was getting, they quickly pulled the promoted tweet and changed directions. From what I can tell, this took an hour or so. Next time, I have a feeling they’ll be able to move in 30 minutes. Point = Social media is real-time. McDonald’s showed that they had their ears open.
- In reading through the comments on this post, Rick Wion (aka rdublife) himself was commenting on certain points brought on by readers that were incorrect. Point = Know when and where to comment when social media turns on you. McDonald’s knew better than to respond to the flurry via Twitter, but definitely were proactive in other channels.
- Not too long after this PR nightmare, McDonald’s started yet another hashtag, this time using #LittleThings. So far, the responses have been fairly positive. Point = Get back on the horse. That a boy Rick!
- I’m tired of all the comments that said “McDonald’s should have known better”. Why is that? According to BazaarVoice, 80% of all online comments and reviews are positive. Yes, we all know what’s bad about McDonald’s and Coca-Cola and Budweiser, but most of the time, people stay friendly. Heck, just ask my kids about McDonald’s. It’s like heaven on earth. Point = For the most part, when you ask for feedback, it’s positive.
Look, I may be seeing this issue with a “the glass is half full” mentality, but the media are all drinking the same Kool-Aid here. Did it turn out great? No. Was it a “horrific catastrophe” as some have proclaimed? Not even close.
From what I can tell, McDonald’s has been laying low (compared to some like Burger King) on the social media front for some time (even with almost 300,000 Twitter followers and 13.8 million Facebook fans). Now they are trying to get into the game…a whole new ball game from what they, or anyone else, is used to. Reminds me of how Wal-Mart took it nice and slow and made some mis-steps before getting into the online retailing game (btw, for Black Friday in 2011, Wal-Mart was the second most visited site behind Amazon.com). McDonald’s is now taking this whole social media content thing pretty seriously, including this example of its crowdsourced mini-movie experiment.
Although I may be the only one, I like the direction McDonald’s is going with this and I’m looking forward to the next idea.
What say you?
Image Credit: the ePerspective
12 Comments
Great points. The only way to never fail is not to try. Hat’s off to McD’s for trying, learning and keeping it real.
They’re a sophisticated marketing organization and one of the world’s best known and most talked about brands, Joe, not a wannabe social media experiment. They should have known better and they know their brand and audience better. Keep your hashtags narrow and focused if you want to direct a conversation. #AAstories from American Airlines? I don’t think so….this was naive in the extreme.
Hey Craig…of course I see your point, which is consistent with the media…but I just don’t see it as all bad. Southwest uses (not promotes) general hashtags like #swoon and #vintage, not to direct the conversation, but to communicate and be human.
Could it have been done better…probably. Is it all bad? I just don’t think so.
Everyone in the media is talking like we live in a black and white world. I just don’t see it that way.
Funny, Joe, I have been attacking the media and blog community for the way this has been covered, often with factual errors. Guess once a journalist, always a journalist. Too bad you don’t read Dutch
Thanks JP…one of my many shortcomings
I couldn’t agree with you more here Joe,
The web platform in the world of web 2.0 and even emerging 3.0 is still very new and untested in the eyes of traditional old school marketing tactics. With so many bases to cover as a marketing department these days, its no wonder certain steps weren’t taken to secure the optimum response. I love experimentation. As a marketer myself, I employ these tactics all the time. Am I popular all the time? No. But I learn from my mistakes and move on. Even a brand as large as Micky D’s should be credited for trying. You narrow your target that way.
Having money doesn’t always guarantee a better targeted demographic view. With so many ways to skin a cat these days in terms of marketing campaign strategy, its understandable that precise execution was not met up front. Its always easy to point a finger at a large corporation that has always historically gotten bad press, but McD’s is part of a positive corporate movement that I hope the rest of the world will employ: They’re listening to their consumers and making changes.
It’s interesting…some I’ve talked to don’t give big brands the leash to try some of these things…that they should have known better. Well, maybe…but maybe not.
I think the next 60 days will tell the tale on this one.
Holy smokes Joe, I thought I was the only one that felt this way. I’ll admit though, at first I sort of fist pumped along with everyone else, but then after thinking on it for a bit, I felt like a hypocrite.
A hypocrite because I always preach that as long as you show up and you test and you learn from it – you win.
I do think they could have responded…shown some human vulnerability. But, on the other hand, you can’t really feed the trolls…I get that. That may have fanned the flames a bit.
Plus, only 2% negative? That ain’t bad at all. I’d take that every day of the week.
@davemhuffman
Thanks Dave…appreciate the take. I agree with you…like you I just want everyone to see both sides. Of course it could be done better, but it wasn’t the end of the world.
Kudos for this Joe. I have to say that my initial reaction on this case was negative too and it is easy to blame a giant brand for that one. But as you described they did something what is the core of social media. They listened to their audience and showed action on what happened real time.
If we are scared to try new things, because of negative responses or a critical comment, we should leave the social media space and do something else. But if we as marketers take time and efforts in social media we should try new things, listen to our audience, learn from their comments, adjust if needed and move on to do better. To make it short: try fast, learn fast and act fast.
A great big AMEN! We can’t predict how our audience will respond. That is the beauty of social media. The art is in how we respond and move forward.
All of the folks laughing and pointing the finger are the ones unwilling to step out and take chances. In the end, who will really be laughing?
Mcdonalds is definitely a late arriver but seems to become a serious player on the social media scene by trying to formulate a winning strategy, some thing I also struggled with initially but I was persistent and now my company is growing northwards, icing on the cake came when Inc magazine voted my company as one of the fastest growing.
And then as a best selling author, my interaction and feedback from my fans has been invaluable.