Monday night saw the first episode of McDonald’s Gets Grilled documentary aired on Channel 7. If you didn’t see the program, it’s likely you still heard about it. The show, which involved giving six members of the public an all-access pass to McDonald’s, has attracted plenty of debate regarding its blurring of advertising and documentary.
That debate’s interesting but what really caught my attention was the social media strategy McDonald’s put in place to deal with the fall-out when the show aired.
Here’s three things I noticed the company did well…
It made official information easy to find. McDonald’s realised people would be searching online for information about the show so decided to make it easy for people to find it. Currently when you search for McDonalds it brings up a paid ad that links you directly to a Q&A related to the program. This will have increased the chances of consumers getting facts from the company, rather than other sources.
It anticipated a peak in consumer queries. McDonald’s knew people would have a lot of questions about the show so set up a temporary Twitter profile (@McResponse) to handle conversations about the program. All too often brands fall down when issues hit because they’re unable to cope with a flood in demand, so good to see the organisation getting on the front foot with this.
It got personal on social media. On Monday night, McDonald’s Australia CEO, Catriona Noble, answered questions about the show posted to the McDonald’s Australia Facebook Page. The human approach is almost always important in issues management so it was encouraging to see the brand embrace a personal approach in dealing with concerns and queries people aired.
The points listed above aren’t ground-breaking but do highlight the importance of integrating social media components into any PR risk assessment. Having said that, there’s always lessons to be learnt, no matter how robust the strategy that’s put in place. With that in mind, what more do you think McDonald’s could have done?
