Thursday, January 29, 2009
McDonalds CMO Mary Dillon: We're Still Learning Social Networks
Let me preface the post by giving a special thanks to Rachelle Lacroix and Bryan Blaise of Fleishman Hillard, who were so courteous and arranged our visit to Mplanet2009.
Two companies stood out during my two days at Mplanet2009- Coke and McDonalds, Both companies spent time to talk to the blogging community at the annual event hosted by the American Marketing Association.
You may recall my earlier post crediting McDonald's CMO Mary Dillon, as the lone executive who took time out of her cramped schedule to talk with ALL of bloggers in one session. Time constraints prevented me from asking "As an spokesperson for the food's quality, I can't help but wonder, how often do you eat at McDonald's?" But we still learned a lot about McDonald's marketing plans for 2009 and beyond. I was impressed by the fact that McDonalds and Dillon were humble enough to admit they still had a lot to learn. The funny thing is, they designated time to speak to us, while other corporations missed out, so McDonald's left me with two major impressions:
1. They're eager to learn more about social media.
2. By engaging with bloggers, they're on the right track.
You can watch two videos from the Dillon interview. The top video is the shorter of the two, about 3 minutes long. Lower video is approximately 9 minutes.
In Japan and Korea they're letting customers use mobile phones to give feedback.In Japan, McDonalds has a relationship with Nintendo, and you can download a game to your DS, a free game, just by entering the restaurant.
Mcworld.com allows kids to enter codes from their toys and create a virtual world for the pet or character that comes in their Happy Meal.
Dillon was very straightforward and honest with many of her answers. She mentioned several internal blogs and forums that employees use to interact with management. She also shared some of the insights they gained from the Global Moms Panel, including the U.S. version called: Mom's Quality Correspondents, where mothers contribute their thoughts and feedback regarding McDonald's products.
They're blogging externally, about their experience with the brand. They've been a pretty big advocate of what we're doing and pushing us harder to put more fruits and vegetables and finding ways so that kids can make those choices and mom doesn't have to be the bad guy. Because a lot about going to McDonalds is the treat, it's about the fun. They've not held back when they're not happy about something. I do believe that when people get exposed..
When Dillon was asked about the possibility of starting RSS feeds to keep customers in touch with special events or deals, she confessed:
We're not quite that sophisticated yet. I think we do a really good tools around to understand the demographics of an area. We do some local store marketing and we're beginning to connect store/local marketing opportunity.
There's an example of McDonald's local store marketing in my hometown, Merritt Island, the TRUE home of Kennedy Space Center. McDonald's put a Space Shuttle on top of the playpen, as you can see in the picture.
On social networks, Dillon didn't see social media as a top priority because McDonalds already has such strong presence throughout the world. However, she sees the potential to enhance the company's image through networks and forums.
We're not there yet. Social media for the future is a big opportunity for us and one that we haven't really tapped into as much, but we will. So it's not a critical on the front-end need, but is it a critical front end opportunity? I would say absolutely.We know that by using social media, not to try to sway it, but to let it evolve, more people will know about our food and our ingredients. There's a powerful opportunity for us to convey that more authentically to people in the future, and frankly it's not a high investment one. It's a matter of getting more expertise and time investment.
I'll recap my interview with Coke VP of Hispanic Marketing Reinaldo Padua in the next post.
Posted By Matt O'Hern at 11:54 AM
Permanent Link: McDonalds CMO Mary Dillon: We're Still Learning Social Networks
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