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In what is being described as a "risky" and "brave" move, McDonald's has created the Mom's Quality Correspondents team.
The Menu Pages is skeptical.
McDonald's is opening up its kitchens to an army of motherbloggers, who will be reporting their allegedly unedited findings on McD's website, and their verifiably unedited findings on blogs around the Internet. The fast food giant's goal is to stem criticism that the restaurant's offerings are making the country obese by making their processes more transparent to the public (as transparent as a barrel of trans fats?)
So what is this really going to accomplish? If McD's is trying to stamp out criticisms related to the nutrition of their food, this scheme isn't going to have any impact at all. What will the mothers say? "Workers secretly pat off extra oil from the French Fries before enboxing them to save customers a few calories"? Aren't the kitchens...already open? You can see all the way to the back!
The Chicago Tribune has a lengthy article on the new blogging strategy.
The burger giant apparently also is hoping that the program will help contradict stories of fattening, unhealthy food that have been detailed in books such as "Fast Food Nation" and movies such as "Super Size Me."
McDonald's has equipped six mothers with laptop computers to record their impressions of its operations over the next few months. The moms were chosen by an independent company from a group of 4,000 applicants, and the blogs and journals will be posted "unedited" beginning June 20 on McDonald's home page, where it hopes to attract other moms interested in seeing the comments, officials said last week.
It is a move that could easily backfire....Terry Kearney, a marketing professor at Chicago State University, said he thinks McDonald's is taking a huge risk. The use of the Internet increases the risk significantly, he added.
"Nothing like this has ever been done using the Internet," he said.
Still, Kearney said it gives the chain the chance to gain easy victories.
"This gives them the opportunity to exceed expectations," he said.
Most consumers have "very low expectations" of the meal they will get from the fast-food chain, Kearney said.
Meanwhile Advertising Age is reporting,
McDonald's declined to divulge details of the plan, other than to say it will soon announce the winning moms. But a spokesman did say, "We'll provide them with avenues to be able to share their findings." Presumably that includes blogs, chat rooms and public forums to spread brand evangelism from a group known to be skeptical, protective -- and, with $2 trillion in buying power, the keeper of the lunch money.
Selected moms are expected to participate in as many as three "field trips" lasting two to three days, and receive payment for "reasonable travel expenses."
Changing a brand's image is never easy work. In the 1940's Marlboro spent millions to change its image from a female cigarette to a manly man's smoke.
Time will only tell whether McDonald's new McMommy blogging strategy is actually a viable branding trend or whether its a strategy others see as simply blowing smoke.
Image Credit:University of Rochester
Elana blogs about business culture at FunnyBusiness
