Our Food. Your Questions McDonald’s Transparency Journey

Agenda

About Me

McDonald’s Structure

OFYQ Program Overview −History −Goals −Strategy

OFYQ Execution −Social listening −Topic focus −Paid/Owned/Earned Strategy

Results

Tyler Litchenberger, McDonald’s USA

McDonald’s Structure

14,000 McDonald’s US restaurants

90% franchisee/10% McDonald’s owned

22 regions

Large network of marketing and PR agencies

Customer Mindset

Trusted Brand…

…ensures

License to Operate Product Preference Top Talent Acquisition

Access Advocacy

6

Trusted Brand

From

Being and doing good

and telling people about

it

To

Creating social relevance

Millennials’ Top-Rated Brand Attributes

Consumer Mindset

Conversation has shifted

FROM obesity, calories, fat

FROM ingredients/where is food sourced

TO preservatives, chemicals, GMOs, processed food

TO how is it processed, made? what’s added?

McDonald’s Common Myths

Creating Brand Love for McDonald’s Our Food. Your Questions.

Our Food. Your Questions.

The campaign was intended to combat myths about

the food at McDonald's in a relevant, interesting and

authentic way.

Our Food. Your Questions. Goals

Build the business through transparent interactions with our customers

Reclaim our brand story by −Earning brand advocacy − Inspiring internal and external advocates −Removing and mitigating brand doubt −Taking actions as a brand (story doing) that help connect what we “say”

with what we “do” to earn trust

Inspiration From OFYQ in Canada

Imperatives for Success

Socially Sourced Content:

Answer the Questions Consumers are Asking

Two-way Conversation

Discoverable Content:

Publish in Places Where Our Customers Spend Time

Humanize the Brand

Agency Integration

Strategic, Coordinated “Campaign”

Research and tracking

Message and content

Paid media Earned media

Owned media

(website, social, in-

store, etc.)

Digital monitoring

and engagement

Planning and training

Grassroots and

inclusion

Stakeholder engagement

Coordinated and aligned in all of our actions

Strategic Elements

Grant Imahara

Curious Consumers McDonald’s and Supplier SME’s

Social Listening

Our Journey Was Guided by the Food that Created the Most Discussion

To Hashtag or Not To Hashtag

1:Many 1:Many 1:1

Fully Integrated Approach

Rapid Response Team

Community Management and Engagement

Rapid Responder Workflow

Rapid responders engage through Sprinklr

−Pull responses from database of over 650 legally approved responses

If new question arises, responders assign to McDonald’s topic

lead

Topic leads liaise with topic SME’s

Proposed response is legally approved

Rapid responders shorten for social media and respond to

question

TV :30

TV :15

McDonalds.com

Social Channels

YouTube Launch Film*

Grant (IW) :60 Hidden Cam (DDB)

*Social Response

No Paid Media

Paid Digital:

Social, Display, Search

Pre-Roll

McDonalds.com FAQ Main Page

Hero webisode in default position.

Minisode Minisode Webisode

Grant :15 Dudes:15 CC / Wes :15

Infographics/Social Content

Top OFYQ Questions on McDonalds.com Top Mobile Question Pages:

Do you use so-called ‘pink slime’ in your Chicken McNuggets?

What’s in a Chicken McNugget?

What kind of beef do you use in your burgers?

Do you use so-called ‘pink-slime’ in your burgers?

How do you prepare your Chicken McNuggets?

How do you make your beef patties?

What is in the Big Mac sauce?

Do your buns contain the same chemicals used to make yoga mats?

What type of fish do you use in the Filet-O-Fish?

Does the McRib use the same plastic that’s in yoga mats?

Top Desktop/Tablet Question Pages:

Do you use so-called ‘pink slime’ in your Chicken McNuggets?

What kind of beef do you use in your burgers?

Why doesn’t your food rot?

What type of fish do you use in your Filet-O-Fish?

Is your McRib made from real pork? What cuts do you use?

Do you use real chicken in your Chicken McNuggets?

Does McDonald’s beef contain worms?

What’s in a Chicken McNugget?

What kind of potatoes do you use to make your fries?

How do you prepare your Chicken McNuggets?

Results

Communications Launch Results

Real-time Opportunity

Conan

O’Brien

tweets about

the McRib

video

10.9K impressions

998 engagements

9.1% engagement rate

Key Media Learnings

Strongest performing video was Beef webisode, which directly correlated to media interest because it kicked-off the initiative

81% of stories skewed neutral to positive in tone

62% of placements announce that McDonald’s is “providing a deeper look at food quality/sourcing”

Nearly half of stories (45%) reference Grant Imahara as a “skeptic/known for unveiling the truth”

Social Engagement – First 2 weeks

9,024 questions answered

4.2 million YouTube views

623,000 visits to McDonalds.com/FAQ page

− Compared to 29,407 visits previous 2 weeks

760 million earned media impressions

Results to date

38,684 answered questions to-date

Weekly sentiment (the tone of pos/neu questions) among those who asked

a question through social media was 76% (program average is 61%)

Weekly perception (pos/neu consumer perceptions of McDonald’s food)

among those who asked a question through social media was 57% (program

average is 49%)

3.1 million visitors to the food quality FAQ pages on McDonalds.com to-

date

32.2 million YouTube views to-date

15.8 million Facebook views to-date

5.4 billion earned media impressions to-date

Love for the Rapid Response Team!

Top Performing Tweets

YouGov Brand Index Survey

“Overall, McDonald's is getting an across the board boost in perception for

‘coming clean’ in its newest campaign.”

Millennials: Millennials had the most positive reaction to McDonald's "Our Food.

Your Questions" campaign, pushing their Buzz score up 25 points from -10 on the

Monday when it started to 15 over the weekend, its highest Buzz score since early

August

Mothers: Mothers had the second best positive reaction to the "Our Food. Your

Questions" campaign, jumping 16 points from a -2 score on the Monday it started

to an 18 score by Friday, then down to 11 over the weekend.

QSR Customers: QSR consumers in general seemed to be the least swayed by the

campaign. The transparency campaign also moved the perception up only a couple

of points, from 40 to 42 percent, and now it's settled at 43 percent.

OFYQ Program Learning

Do your research

Don’t be afraid to answer the tough questions

Use your owned channels to tell YOUR story

Use multiple platforms to reach a varied audience

Have fun!

Our Food. Your (interesting) Questions.

Q1:Do you mutilate/grind up baby chicks for

McNuggets?

A1: Absolutely not. We use white meat from adult

chickens, not baby chicks.

Q2: Why do you only use the male chickens for your

food?

A2: Chickens raised for meat production, including

McNuggets, are male and female.

Q3: When was the last time you used scalded

stomach in the McRib (if ever)?

A3: No, we have never used stomach in our McRib.

Q4: Response to Ebola in our food

A4: Ebola is not a foodborne illness. While we

are happy to answer questions about our food,

we recommend you visit the CDC website to

better answer questions you have about this

illness: http://www.cdc.gov/

Q5: How many onions do you use a day and

where do they come from?

A5: *sniff* We use approx. 118,000 lbs of

onions a day from the Pacific Northwest, CA,

TX and sometimes Mexico. *sniff*

Questions? Thank you!