Five takeaways from the McDonald’s burger backlash
“I’ll have the viral video with fries”
When McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski filmed himself trying the Big Arch, it’s unlikely he thought he’d go viral for all the wrong reasons.
You can imagine the pitch: top exec taste-tests new burger in a snappy short-form video. On paper, it sounds like the perfect blend of marketing stunt and mukbang. Unlikely to set the world on fire, but hardly controversial.
Instead, Kempczinski’s stilted delivery provoked a round of mockery from customers and competitors. Where did it all go wrong?
Was it when he referred to a burger as “the product” without a trace of irony? Or when he gingerly took the smallest bite possible? Either way, the vibe was less ‘delicious new lunch option’ and more ‘parent eating something their child had brought home from food tech’.
Sometimes content made with the best of intentions falls flat. Here are five key takeaways from this Whopper of a misfire.
#1 Make sure the medium matches the message
Marketers often talk about ‘speaking the language of the internet’, but different social media channels have their own dialogues.
Kempczinski posted the video to his personal Instagram account, which may have been the first mistake. Users generally visit this platform when they’re looking for escapism, not corporate jargon.
That said, it’s unlikely that the video would have had a better reception on LinkedIn. Social media thrives on both authenticity and irony. Anything that smacks of self-importance or an inability to read the digital room will go down badly.
Posting it as a video was also a misstep. Unlike a blog piece, or even a written social post, there’s literally nowhere to hide with this format. Any hesitancy or awkwardness is captured in high-definition. A savvy content creator would be able to cut these moments out – or even enhance them to add personality – but Kempczinski posted the video with minimal edits.
Short-form video is a hugely popular medium, and can have excellent results. But it’s not enough to stick a camera in front of a colleague (no matter how senior) and hope for the best.
#2 Boardroom language doesn’t translate to the real world
In this case, both the medium and the message was iffy.
One of the details that drew mockery was the use of language that felt corporate rather than consumer-friendly. Audiences aren’t stupid. They know that top fast-food executives refer to menu items as ‘products’ because that’s what they are. It doesn’t make it any less jarring to hear.
This is where comms and brand teams add real value. They’re often the last line of defence between internal vocabulary and audience reality. Presenters shouldn’t have to read from a script, but a quick review of talking points should catch phrases that are technically correct but inappropriate or inauthentic.
Storyboarding a piece of content can help to identify any key words to include (or avoid). It’s also worth storyboarding possible audience responses as part of a comprehensive crisis comms strategy.
Before anything involving a senior spokesperson goes live, teams should run a simple exercise: how will this be clipped, memed, mocked or reframed if it lands badly?
#3 Seniority doesn’t equate to social media savvy
One of the clearest lessons from this burger brouhaha is that the right spokesperson is not always the most senior one.
If the objective is to reassure investors, set strategy or respond to a major issue, someone from the top team may be the right voice at the right time. But if the objective is to make a menu item look irresistible on social media, that’s a different brief entirely.
Executive visibility only works when the format fits the person. Some leaders come across well in direct-to-camera video. Others are far stronger in interviews, live Q&As, internal comms or written commentary.
A product launch like this might have been better served by someone with the chops to make the message stick: a chef, crew member or – for real authenticity – an actual customer.
#4 Comms teams need the confidence to say no
You could almost hear the McDonald’s social media manager banging their head against the wall as the video went viral. It’s doubtful that they were involved in the decision to post it.
But there’s still an important lesson here for comms leaders dealing with top-down demands: there’s no prize for being the team that obediently chips in own goals. Sometimes the most valuable line in comms isn’t we can make that work. It’s we should do this differently.
Too often, organisations treat senior leader content as inevitable once it’s been suggested. Comms teams should feel empowered to stop weak ideas from going out in the first place. That means being able to say, respectfully but clearly, that a concept is not working – even when it involves the C-suite.
Best practice means pressure-testing the format, the fit, the timing and the likely public response. If content feels flat, fake or simply wrong for the individual, that’s the moment to intervene.
#5 If all else fails, lean into the joke
In the pantheon of PR disasters, this is small fry (excuse the pun). Most of the blowback seems to have been aimed at the gauche delivery of Kempczinski rather than McDonald’s as a brand.
As other fast-food outlets and CEO’s “newsjacked” the moment and made jokes, the official McDonald’s account posted its own tongue-in-cheek response. Axios even reported that it “united the internet for a few days”, which led to an increase in sales.
In our attention economy, being laughed at isn’t necessarily a bad result. And if you can humanise your brand by joining in with the joke, all the better.
This moment is unlikely to damage Kempczinski either. His followers have grown by 30% since the Big Arch video. But it’s likely that the next time a CEO picks up a phone to start filming, someone from the comms team will be keeping a close eye on the final cut.
Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.
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