McDonald’s has launched a live Q&A forum to answer con­sumer ques­tions. It gives con­sumers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to resolve endur­ing ques­tions they may have about the source and pro­duc­tion of McDonald’s food, and it gives the brand a chance to talk about what hap­pens behind the scenes at the com­pa­ny in a pos­i­tive light.

McDon­ald’s, the world’s largest fast-food ham­burg­er chain, is no stranger to crit­i­cism. The glob­al cor­po­ra­tion has been called out on numer­ous issues – every­thing from how the restau­rant treats its work­ers, to the unhealthy items on their menus, and even cru­el­ty to ani­mals.

There was a time per­haps, that the way to han­dle this was via strict­ly word­ed press releas­es and clever PR, but such meth­ods are now tremen­dous­ly dat­ed. In the world of free-mov­ing, dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion, wikis, free­dom of infor­ma­tion requests, and pow­er­ful, con­nect­ed online com­mu­ni­ties, con­sumers are quick­ly able to rec­og­nize the dif­fer­ence between insin­cere and authen­tic mar­ket­ing mes­sages.

‘Our Food, Your Questions’

Today there’s a grow­ing need for brands to be open and authen­tic about their prod­ucts. McDon­ald’s lat­est cam­paign, “Our Food, Your Ques­tions,” is an exten­sion of a cam­paign that has already run in Cana­da and Aus­tralia, to great suc­cess. The U.S. roll­out is even more cru­cial in that it cov­ers the corporation’s most sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket.

To pro­mote the cam­paign, McDonald’s have draft­ed “Myth­busters” host Grant Ima­hara to present a series of short films vis­it­ing McDonald’s fac­to­ries, farms, and restau­rants. The videos will be close­ly linked to the many ques­tions the brand has received about the pro­duc­tion process­es of McDonald’s food.

One recent video (“Is McDonald’s beef real?”) takes a trip to the corporation’s Cargill fac­to­ry open­ing the doors and tak­ing view­ers through the meat pro­duc­tion process in a infor­ma­tive, pos­i­tive video. It rep­re­sents a new direc­tion in the brand’s mes­sag­ing, address­ing the crit­i­cism that their food has received over the years in a direct, and pos­i­tive man­ner.

As Kevin Newell, Chief Brand and Strat­e­gy Offi­cer for McDonald’s USA revealed in a state­ment:

“We’re proud of the food we serve our 27 mil­lion U.S. cus­tomers every day, yet we know peo­ple have unan­swered ques­tions, so we’re invit­ing every­one in the U.S. on a jour­ney to learn more about our food.”

A reju­ve­nat­ed sense of pride is one thing, but it’s the way such open­ness is received by con­sumers that is of real val­ue to the brand, despite the very obvi­ous risk of neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty. Heather Oldani, Senior Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions explained that cus­tomers “want to know what goes in the prod­ucts and ser­vices, cus­tomers are will­ing to give you the ben­e­fit of the doubt, if you show you’re out there.”

Will McDonald’s Effort Succeed?

“Our food, your ques­tions.” was launched in Cana­da over two years ago to great suc­cess, so the cor­po­ra­tion has good rea­son to believe that the approach will gain trac­tion. One video pro­duced for the Cana­di­an cam­paign, “Why does your food look bet­ter in ads?” has since been viewed more than 10 mil­lion times.

In McDonald’s own words, the Cana­di­an cam­paign saw the brand “achieve dra­mat­ic gains on brand trust scores (by as much as 60 per­cent) and food-qual­i­ty per­cep­tions.” Despite this, cor­po­ra­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives insists the new trans­paren­cy of their mes­sag­ing is not for the pur­pose of busi­ness per­for­mance. Instead, as Chief Brand Man­ag­er Kevin Newell recent­ly told “Good Morn­ing Amer­i­ca” the cam­paign is sim­ply designed to “make sure cus­tomers tru­ly know the sto­ry about McDonald’s food.”

Embracing Authenticity, Unlocking The Power Of User-Generated Content

For many decades of oper­a­tion, McDonald’s have been some­what closed in com­mu­ni­cat­ing what goes into the pro­duc­tion of their prod­ucts. It has been to their detri­ment in the past, giv­ing rise to rumors of “pink slime,” and ques­tion­able prac­tices over the rear­ing of cage poul­try. “Our Food, Your Ques­tions” works because it acknowl­edges that users have gen­uine con­cerns about their food, and allows them to address the rumors.

User-gen­er­at­ed con­tent is both infor­ma­tive and effec­tive in dri­ving con­tent and answers. The company’s sup­ply chains are very long, sourc­ing raw ingre­di­ents from all over the world, and it would be impos­si­ble for any one con­tent mar­ket­ing cam­paign to address ques­tions from McDon­ald’s many cus­tomers. The ques­tions user are ask­ing the brand allows them to pro­duce con­tent that they know will be use­ful and well received; as is evi­dent in the pos­i­tive recep­tion the videos pro­duced for the cam­paign.

But the real val­ue of the cam­paign is in the brand’s embrac­ing of authen­tic mar­ket­ing, and the bold­ness with which they have com­mit­ted to the strat­e­gy. There will always be some who are repelled by the chain’s food, but there are many more who will com­mend the brand for effi­cien­cy and inno­va­tion across their huge glob­al sup­ply chains, and ever present pro­vi­sion of quick, ser­vice­able, food.

Even more will appre­ci­ate and be won by the open­ness of a brand who both lis­tens and responds to their con­sumers.

McDonald’s Supersized Social Effort

Anoth­er ini­tia­tive by McDon­ald’s will see the restau­rant estab­lish 14,500 Face­book pages, giv­ing it the largest foot­print of any brand on the social net­work. So far 7,000 pages have gone live, with the remain­ing planned to be live by the end of this year – and each fran­chise will also have its own Twit­ter account dotRis­ing report­ed.

David Mar­tinel­li, U.S. dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing man­ag­er at McDonald’s, spoke of the effort at the Dream­force con­fer­ence in San Fran­cis­co:

“…We know that’s a lot of pages to get up and run­ning, but we know the customer’s jour­ney doesn’t end at the restau­rant,” “We want­ed to con­nect to them in the place they’re at and deliv­er that rel­e­vant con­tent. It’s impor­tant to be part of the con­ver­sa­tion and real­ly under­stand what’s being said, and then join the con­ver­sa­tion.”

What do you think of McDon­ald’s “Our Food, Your Ques­tions” con­tent cam­paign? Share your thoughts in the com­ments!