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.

The Content Marketing Review (TCMR): The story of Sarah and Juan

Brand

Extra gum

Creator

Energy BBDO (agency)

Title

The story of Sarah and Juan

TCMR Score (out of 100): 95 (superior)

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

Description

A video that tells the story of a young couple’s life together and how a man uses gum wrappers, of all things, to propose to his girlfriend in a well thought out, romantic way.

Why it works

It’s a great, emotional story told in a compelling way.

Why it works as content marketing

While well crafted, it does take quite a bit more than 30 seconds to tell this story, so it wouldn’t work well (or be cost-effective) in the typical TV spot format. Also, it’s important to note that the message says nothing about the product at all, choosing to integrate it as part of the story; striking a beautiful balance that’s more than simple product placement, but much less than an endorsement.

What can we learn?

I would love to say we can point to a sales increase (or lack thereof) as a result of this content marketing tactic. But, while I looked, it turns out that Mars Corp. (owners of Wrigley and the Extra brand) is very private about financial matters.

What we can learn is that people love a romantic story and will give a brand credit for creating one. They will also share a great story prolifically with their personal networks (as of December 2015 – not yet three months old – the video on YouTube had been viewed nearly 17 million times and shared 59,000 times). But why?

Like its predecessor video, called Origami, Sarah and Juan pulls the viewer in with an intriguing story, while keeping the product mentions infrequent enough to avoid it feeling like an ad.

Because — are you ready for this – it’s not an ad.

Ads, in the purest sense, promote products or services. They talk about features and benefits and they tell people where they can go to buy the product or service. This video does none of that.

I’m sure there are those who will disagree with me on this point, perhaps even some of the people working to promote the brand itself. To me, an ad is more than just getting attention. It’s that, for sure. But then it moves (or tries to move) the audience toward a purchase. This video never attempts that…and, perhaps above all else, that’s what makes it more content marketing than advertising.

The seamless connection to the brand itself, given to the audience as a head-nodding moment that’s woven indelibly into the story, can easily be simultaneously appreciated and forgiven by the viewer all at the same time.

Here’s the bottom line: the Extra team understands their station in life. They are promoting a brand of chewing gum, not something complex like a car or a life insurance policy.

Theirs is an impulse purchase and the hope here is simply that, the next time the viewer is in a store or at the gas station near a chewing gum display, perhaps they will give Extra a try. That’s it.

And that is the very essence of content marketing.

Well played, Extra. Well played.

Content is beginning to bifurcate

Photo credit: thenationalherald.com

Being a writer, I try not to use big, potentially confusing terms as best I can. But, sometimes, they just fit.

That’s the case with our old friend bifurcation. As you may know, the term itself means to divide into two branches or forks, and I believe that’s exactly what’s happening to the content being created by marketers these days.

Some content (AKA the messages created by brands) is getting very good. These brands, like Oreo and Lego, are investing in the creation of quality content and it shows. On the other hand, there are brands who are not investing in the quality piece, rather focusing on the quantity of the content they are creating. This also shows.

My guess is that marketers on team quantity believe if they create enough content, it will bring people to their door (website, etc.).

Whether that’s true or not is a subject for another day. My point here is that content, specifically what I’ll call marketing content (to distinguish from more transactional content) is beginning to break into two camps, two kinds, two areas…oh, it’s bifurcating…alright?

I believe this content bifurcation will continue in 2016 and will further separate the brands who do this content creation thing well from those who do not, creating a haves-vs-haves-not situation.

My urging to you, dear brand marketers, is to get on board with the quality team.

Gone are the days when, if you got enough ‘stuff’ out there, you could get the attention of the search engines and win. The Googles and the Bings of the world and others are far too smart for old school things like key word stuffing…and that should tell us something. It should tell us more than, “Well, I guess we’ll have to try some other trick now.”

There are no more tricks. Your messages have to be relevant, helpful and meaningful for your audience or they will be ignored. That’s it. End of story.

No matter what business you are in or how you sell — B2B, B2C, B2B2C — there are no consumers begging you to send them more messages. And don’t even get me started on those who haven’t decided on a target audience on which to focus (how on earth can you be relevant, helpful and meaningful to someone if you don’t know who that someone is? Ugh.).

Anyway, as 2016 develops, I believe this bifurcation of content will continue and become even more pronounced. Now is the time, brand marketers, to decide which team you’re on…team quality or team quantity.

I’m sure there are those who are thinking, “What about both?” And it is true, to an extent, that brands need to create good quality content and create an ample amount of it, as well. But at some point, one has to take precedence.

There will come a day/project/meeting where you’ll be asked, “Do we want to make several of these or do we want to make one of them really well?”

As content continues to bifurcate, you will have to choose.

Please, I implore you, choose quality.