answer the following question regarding the text
- How McDonald's should best utilize social media in order to promote the launch of its oatmeal?
Mcdonald's Corporation Social Media: Mcdonald's Is Lovin' It Abstract McDonald's is preparing for a nationwide launch of oatmeal and simultaneously ramping up its use of social media to promote the product. The company continues to face criticism for contributing to America's obesity problem. Case Rick Wion sat in his office on the morning of September 14, 2010, studying the YouTube video that his media department had just forwarded to him. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) had produced a commercial showing a dead man in a morgue, clutching a cheeseburger in his right hand, with a woman crying over his body. At the end of the commercial, the Mcdonald's logo along with the caption "I was lovin' it" appeared, with a voice-over urging the audience to eat a vegetarian meal that evening. The ad blatantly implied that Mcdonald's was responsible for causing heart disease and high cholesterol. Rick tapped his pencil several times and began to ponder why Mcdonald's continues to be targeted and blamed for health problems when many of their Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) competitors serve similar menus. This was even more frustrating to Rick, considering that Mcdonald's had been adding healthier menu options since as early as 1987, when fresh salads were first introduced. Rick Wion was in his sixth month as the first-ever Director of Social Media for Mcdonald's. His full-time team consisted of himself and one assistant; 10 other employees worked part time on various social media initiatives from Twitter and Facebook to customer service responses. Prior to joining Mcdonald's headquarters team, Wion worked with GolinHarris as Vice President of Interactive Media and Digital Communications. Since Wion was on the McDonald's account at GolinHarris from 2006 until the time he left, he was very familiar with this type of criticism. Consumer Perceptions and Other Attacks | While McDonald's has been working hard at changing the public's perception of the company as a purveyor of unhealthy food and as a perpetuator of obesity, such perceptions have notoriously been resistant to change. Brandindex is a company that measures consumer perceptions on QSR restaurants based on a scale of four measures: quality, value, satisfaction, and reputation. From these four measures they extrapolate the overall brand health score. In a report from August 2009, BrandIndex, showed that while consumer perceptions of burger chains like Mcdonald's are relatively poor overall, these types of restaurants are slowly gaining ground. Based on 12 months of analysis, BrandIndex found that Wendy's (major competitor to Mcdonald's) currently holds the top spot in all categories and is perceived as the healthiest brand. Burger King comes in a distant second place and Mcdonald's is in third place on the overall health scale. Carl's Jr. and Hardee's round out the top 5. Though all of these restaurants have improved their scores over the previous year, it was Mcdonald's that made the most impressive gains: less than 21 months ago McDonald's was in fifth place. This rapid swing for Mcdonald's is due to improvements in quality and value perceptions which led to consumersto feel more satisfied. This uptrend in the satisfaction score now has McDonald's tied with Burger King Brandindex's Senior Vice President and Global Managing Director, Ted Marzilli, claims that Mcdonald's rapid improvement could be due to its "heavy value-focused advertising, as well as its recent launch of the McCafe concept, which combines both value and quality messaging." Another group targeting Mcdonald's is Corporate Accountability International, which has a site dedicated to "retiring Ronald Mcdonald." Calling him a "deep-fried Joe Camel for the 21% Century," this group recently found that 47% of Americans would like to see Ronald not used in Mcdonald's advertising anymore. This group believes that using a character to appeal to children to eat unhealthy food is unethical. Page 1 of 5 McDonald's Corporation Social Media: McDonald's Is Lovin' It 3SAGE businesscases Most recently, the PCRM, a nonprofit organization that promotes preventive medicine, conducts clinical research, and encourages higher standards for ethics and effectiveness in research, funded an ad attacking the health implications of eating McDonald's. This commercial originally aired in Washington D.C. in an attempt to bring attention to the high heart disease rates and high concentration of fast food restaurants located in the city. The commercial will continue to air in other cities that the PCRM has deemed "fast food addicted." Screen shots from the commercial demonstrate the harshness of the attack and the severity of the message, and serve to show that improving consumer perceptions is still an uphill battle. Healthy Initiatives & The Upcoming Oatmeal Launch In a recent interview, CEO Jim Skinner said that Mcdonald's has a responsibility as a company to be "part of the solution" to fight societal problems such as obesity. To do that, McDonald's is offering "choice across the menu," which means introducing healthy options for consumers. Recognizing that consumers are becoming increasingly more health-conscious, Mcdonald's has been steadily increasing the number of healthy options available in its restaurants by test-marketing the products in smaller markets before expanding nationwide. This strategy was used in the development of the McCafe real fruit smoothies (210 calories for a 12-ounce portion) and is also the strategy currently being used with oatmeal. McDonald's newest product launch - oatmeal - is currently being tested in 600 stores in the Northeast region. The product rolled out nationwide in January 2011. This move further aligns Mcdonald's into direct competition with Starbucks: McDonald's successful "McCafe" gourmet coffee introduction has allowed the fast food giant to effectively compete with Starbucks, which also serves oatmeal and other breakfast items. McDonald's introduction of healthy breakfast items, as well as its premiere coffeeselection, means that McDonald's is now offering a product line similar to Starbucks, but at a lower price point. The oatmeal contains maple brown sugar, blended with cream and topped with apples, raisins, and cranberries. It sells for $1.99 and contains 280 calories. Starbucks' oatmeal, on the other hand, is plain, whole-grain oatmeal at 140 calories a serving, with optional mix-ins that increase the caloric content, such as brown sugar, dried fruits, and nuts. It sells for $2.45. The push behind the development of the oatmeal comes at a time when breakfast sales are stagnating (going bad), mostly due to high unemployment rates and the resulting lower numbers of commuters who come in during the breakfast service for a cheap meal on the go. Starbucks' launch of oatmeal in 2008 created a huge boost for the company, and likewise, McDonald's is hoping that their own oatmeal will have a similar effect on the slumping breakfast sales. Since breakfast is Page 2 of 5 McDonald's Corporation Social Media: McDonald's Is Lovin' It 3SAGE businesscases Mcdonald's most profitable meal, the company has been looking for ways to boost sales, from the current oatmeal initiative to the McCafe smoothie launch to the Dollar Breakfast Menu offerings. Other healthy menu items offered at breakfast include the English muffin (160 calories and 3 grams of fat) and the fruit & yogurt parfait (160 calories with granola; 130 calories without granola and 2 grams of fat). In line with the CEO's belief that in order to be part of the solution Mcdonald's needs to offer menu choices across the board, other healthy options include an expanded salad menu, additional snack wrap choices, and offering reduced fat ice cream. Additionally, the hamburger and 6-piece chicken nuggets boast 250 and 190 calories, respectively. McDonald's popular Happy Meals now offer the choice of low- fat milk and apple slices instead of soda or French fries, and the company is working hard to target Moms in getting the word out about these healthy options. McDonald's has been targeting Moms - specifically, Mommy Bloggers - for several years. The company learned through market research that mothers were taking their children to Mcdonald's, but not buying any food for themselves due to the lack of healthy options. Mcdonald's realized that partnering with this influential group of mothers who hold the buying power in their families could be beneficial for both parties. They thus formed "Moms' Quality Correspondents, " a program that answers parents' questions about what their children are eating. This program gives mothers access to McDonald's food supply system, allowing them to see that there are healthy options for their families at Mcdonald's. Along these same lines, Mcdonald's invited ten premier Mommy Bloggers to come to its corporate headquarters for a "conversation" and to test the oatmeal. The company also leveraged a BlogHer conference to introduce the oatmeal, and received a lot of positive buzz about the product, whichMcDonald's has hoped will translate into blog postings and generate interest amongst Internet communities for the upcoming launch. History of Social Media Mcdonald's began using social media during a 2006 fall fundraiser to support Ronald Mcdonald House Charities, in which Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, kept a blog as she traveled around the world in support of the charities. The website received over two million hits; however, Mcdonald's was more focused on the 500 comments left by users, since the company saw this as an opportunity for personal connection and engagement with customers. McDonald's viewed the blog as a low-risk trial run with social media, in which they could create more brand awareness, and eventually allow customers to make suggestions on how to improve the menu. In 2007, Mcdonald's partnered with YouTube for a sweepstakes-style contest. This sweepstakes coincided with the launch of chicken snack wraps, and was also intended to create greater brand awareness. Twenty million impressions were posted, and once again, Mcdonald's was focused on the more than 800 comments that were posted on the website. Of these 800 comments, 15-to-20% of them were negative, and criticized both Mcdonald's and YouTube. The criticisms often cited Mcdonald's as being "unhealthy" and YouTube "selling out." More recently, Mcdonald's launched a "Family Time Widget" on Facebook. This charity allowed mothers and fathers on Facebook to pledge to spend a certain amount of time with their families; in return, Mcdonald's would make a donation to Ronald Mcdonald House Charities. Mcdonald's also recently celebrated their one-year anniversary on Twitter (a.k.a., "Twitterversary("), which has helped the company continue their efforts to increase brand awareness. The Twitter account is used for brand messaging, allowing customers to engage with McDonald's via "tweeted" comments and questions. By late 2010, the company had roughly 50,000 followers, with approximately 1,400 new followers every week. Three customer service representatives monitor the site and keep a close eye out for people with bad experiences. McDonald's reaches out to those customers reporting a bad experience by writing them personal notes, and sending coupons to them through the postal service. Mcdonald's has employed several monitoring tools over the past two years in order to establish some social media metrics. These tools include "Maestro" and "Radian6," which measure how people talk about products, ranging from menu items to customer service. Ultimately, this allows Mcdonalds to see what is trending, who is talking about Mcdonalds, and what they are saying. Mcdonald's Moving Forward While McDonald's has made great strides in improving its healthy menu offerings, engaging consumers in awareness of these items, and promoting its brand, there are still many in the marketplace who associate McDonald's with low quality and bad food, especially as far as their children are concerned. As one mommy blogger put it, "put [McDonald's] in my kids' bodies on a regular basis - just so not going to happen." On the other side of the spectrum are those who recognize the steps Mcdonald's is taking to try to reform its unhealthy fast-food image by adding such products as fruit smoothies and oatmeal to its menus. Yet another blogger wrote about this viewpoint by saying, "OK, so McDonald's still pushes a lot of highly processed, nutritionally dubious food, but the point here is that the company is increasingpursuing a concerted strategy of distinguishing itself from fast food competitors, many of whom appear to be moving in the opposite direction." Page 4 of 5 McDonald's Corporation Social Media: McDonald's Is Lovin, It 3SAGE businesscases
