McDonald’s launched a food transparency campaign with the intent on sparking an online dialogue across social media – and, it’s working, sort of. With its commercial titled “Our Food. Your Questions.,” the chain is opening itself up to the public asking for questions regarding the contents in its food, risking potential backlash.
In the spot, people approach a McDonald’s sign and ask questions that include “Does McDonald’s sell real food?” “What’s really in your beef?” and “Pink slime, what’s up with that?”
The commercial first aired Oct. 13 on E! Network and has aired more than 830 times nationally. Four days after its debut, the McDonald’s TV ad saw a spike in digital social Interaction. Out of the 26 spots the chain is currently airing, “Our Food. Your Questions.” is still generating the most online activity.
The McDonald’s commercial maintains an iSpot Effectiveness Rating of 9 and peaked to 9.4 during its first week, while the average effectiveness rating for commercials in the fast-food category is 5.6. iSpot has a tool called an Ad Effectiveness Rating, a score that measure how well a commercial did in comparison to other commercials in the same category. The score comes from dividing the volume of digital activity by the estimated TV spend as compared to all other campaigns on national TV.
As of Oct. 28, the commercial has had 113,849 online views on YouTube and iSpot, but it has gone viral since the controversy. Media outlets such as ABC, Time and Advertising Age have discussed the campaign and the efforts being made in an attempt to clean up the chain’s image. Despite the attempt at transparency, many Tweeters aren’t buying the message. Most Tweets include the same question: where are the answers?
McDonald’s has made an effort to answer certain questions with the help of former “MythBusters” co-host Grant Imahara, who McDonald’s hired to talk about the food content through a series of behind-the-scenes webisodes. In one webisode, he takes consumers on a journey to one of McDonald’s beef suppliers to answer the question of whether or not the chain uses real beef in its burgers. McDonald’s is answering questions through social media as a part of a follow-up response.
Within the fast-food industry, the spot ranks in fourth place for most online activity for commercials that have aired since Oct. 13. During the week of Oct. 28, the spot that ranked one place above it belongs to its competitor, Burger King. The equally controversial commercial iSpot titled “Street Interview” began airing nationally one day prior to the release of the “Our Food. Your Questions” spot.
On Oct. 12, Comedian Billy Eichner took to Twitter to call out Burger King, accusing it of stealing his material in the commercial. Although Burger King did not post this particular commercial on its YouTube channel, the commercial on iSpot generated 160,766 views from embeds and shares, which have been featured on websites for Business Insider, Adweek, Entertainment Online and Gawker.
Although it’s no surprise that controversy leads to a boost in social digital engagement, buzz and social engagement surrounding “Our Food. Your Questions” is exactly what McDonald’s hoped to accomplish.
“In today’s 24/7 news cycle, people are looking for faster, more straightforward responses to their questions about our food,” said Ben Stringfellow, vice president of communications for McDonald’s USA. “We have great information to share and we’re looking forward to engaging in two-way conversations with as many people as possible.”
McDonald’s has opened communication through a campaign in which the chain appears willing to divulge information to skeptics. However, some of its answers are leading to more questions – even with a celebrity MythBuster providing the answers. Is McDonald’s telling the truth by leaving nothing out or is there more to the story? Is McDonald’s being 100 percent honest in the same manner it claims its beef to be 100 percent natural? Time will tell whether this campaign is busted.