Challenge: A perception problem

McDonald’s has long been confident in the quality of its food, its practices and procedures.

However, consistently low food quality scores and social listening revealed that consumers were not so confident. With some of the lowest food quality perception scores in its category, and with consumers three times less likely to eat there because of it, the challenge was, quite literally, to change the conversation and improve food quality perception scores.

Our insight: Consumers have questions about McDonald’s food. We have answers. Good ones. But the only way people will start listening to us is if we started by listening to them.

Solution: Radical transparency

We created a platform that gave consumers unfettered and unfiltered access to the McDonald’s brand. “Our Food. Your Questions.” allowed consumers to ask McDonald’s any question they had about the food. No question was too tough or raw for McDonald’s to answer. Each question and answer would serve a myriad of functions: a personal connection to the brand, a sign McDonald’s was listening, and as a piece of content designed to displace the existing inaccurate or negative information on the web.

And instead of hiding the toughest, most negative questions, we did the opposite and put the full weight of McDonald’s media behind them. Real consumer questions became the advertising for the platform and were brought to life with television, online videos, banner ads, wild postings, projections and subway station takeovers. It was a clear signal that McDonald’s was not only listening, but ready for a transparent discussion.

Results: Fortune favours the brave

The old adage plays true for McDonald’s. Having one of the world’s biggest and most closed brands open its door was disruptive and consumers paid attention.

Results from the platform include:

- 2 million website visits

- 20,000 questions received and answered

- 7 million questions read

- 14 million video YouTube views (combined)

- Coverage from 500+ global media outlets

More than just numbers, from a brand perspective this brave approach to transparency has had a direct impact on the brands food quality scores: with the top three food quality perception measures improving by 73%, 61% and 48% respectively. In a further testament to the power of transparency, we also saw a 46% increase in the metric “company I trust”.

What started as a national campaign influenced how people felt about McDonald’s around the world.