I’ll tell you why not? THEY JUST DON’T GET IT.

EXHIBIT A

McDonald’s UK - Make Up Your Own Mind

Supposedly the site where members of the public can ask McDonald’s anything they like about their food and business. Great, an honest open attempt to combat the negative publicity generated by movies/books such as Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation. Except, all they have delivered is a contrived and completely disingenuous PR spin vehicle.

Concept by TBWA

• Built entirely in Flash! None of the content can be indexed in search engines. Ad agencies just can’t help themselves. When will they learn that websites are not like video production.
• No RSS feeds.
• Videos on the site are not on YouTube. The only one I could find was this one.
• Content is highly suspect. You can’t honestly tell me that the top 10 questions are all nice easy ones like “whats the lowest calorie meal you offer?”. It is just a happy coincidence that the number one question helps reinforce the current campaign to convince people that there are low fat options on their menu. Whatever.

I think it was incredibly brave of McDonald’s to try to engage with the public on these issues, however, as always, the delivery is just terrible. Trying to find some middle ground between a flashy TVC style concept and consumer generated media/social networking, just misses the mark and does more harm than good. It is all or nothing I’m afraid.

Disclaimer: My company does work for McDonald’s in New Zealand and works with their above the line agency. Luckily being agency types they won’t know about my blog so hopefully this won’t get me in trouble.