The Content Marketing Review (TCMR): Our food, your questions

Brand

McDonald’s of Canada

Creator

Tribal DDB (agency)

Title

Our food, your questions

CM Score (out of 100): 90 (quite successful)

Scale: 0-50 (unsuccessful); 51-70 (moderately successful); 71-90 (quite successful); 91-100 (superior).

Description

The world’s largest fast food restaurant chain was taking some flak for its food and not all of the rumors were true. What’s a brand to do?

Enter content marketing.

To combat this situation, McDonald’s Canada created a website giving people the chance to ask any question they want about McDonald’s food (cleverly, this also gives the company the ability to answer these questions in public, where they can be shared).

Why it works

It’s upfront, honest and allows the fast food giant the ability to put some nasty rumors about its food to rest while showing more of its human side.

Why it works as content marketing

This would not have worked as an ad campaign or a press release. That would have come off as defensive and one-sided (mainly because it would have been). By allowing, even encouraging, people to ask the questions they want, Mickey Ds gets the opportunity to dispel some of those almost-out-of-control rumors, like the one about ‘pink slime’ in its chicken nuggets or that they don’t use real eggs in its Egg McMuffins. 

Turns out, both are not true.

And they’re smart about how they answer, too. Some easier questions can be handled directly on the website (Q: “Is your ice cream real dairy?” A: “Not only is our soft serve made with real dairy – it’s made with fresh, delicious, Canadian milk and cream.”).

But, for the more involved answers, they’re willing to invest in engaging videos that answer the question and also showed that human side of the brand. Hey, those are real people making those fries…and almost everyone knows someone who has worked there. Heck, it couldn’t be THAT bad a place, right?

Exactly.

What can we learn?

There are a couple of key things. First, the brand (at least the Canadian branch of the brand) is showing that it listens to its customers and demonstrates, in answer after answer, how it supports Canadian farmers and local businesses. Smart.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for their American cousins. When they grabbed onto this idea, they enlisted a B-list celeb from the cable series Mythbusters (couldn’t afford either of the show’s stars, guys?) and some of the authenticity was immediately lost. The American version had a pre-programmed feel to it, which took away some of what was working. Okay, a lot of what was working. These were no longer real people, but actors talking to people. I think the trust factor just went out the drive through window!

But back to Canada.

The other reason this worked so well (and continues to work) in the great white north is the company’s commitment to answering a significant number of questions. To date, the company has answered more than 20,000 questions — and they won’t avoid the difficult questions, either.

For example, they tackle one of the toughest questions (“Is ‘100% Canadian beef’ just a company that McDonald’s buys from?”) by visiting the Canadian company where they do buy their beef, Cargill, and allowing a proud Cargill employee to take the viewers on a video tour.

It’s this commitment to consistently doing what you say you’re going to do that wins people over. And it’s also a hallmark of content marketing.

Skeptics beware, McDonalds of Canada means what they say… and, all of a sudden, we don’t feel so badly about stopping by for some of those world famous fries.