Ahead of its marquee sponsorship of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, McDonald's is amassing a group of 400 food bloggers to write positively about the chain in exchange for "free gifts and parties." PR Week quotes a McDonald's PR consultant saying that the year-long initiative is an opportunity to "teach" regular folks how to become "brand ambassadors." This is vastly preferable to the old way of being a brand ambassador to McDonald's, which involves simply being fat and holding a McFlurry.
The company first experimented with Foodie Blog Payola in 2010, when a group of 15 mom-bloggers were flown on an all-expenses-paid trip to Chicago to see the company's HQ and speak with the head of McDonald's USA. The chain's social media chief, Rick Wion, explains to the Times why bloggers are better pitchmen then a creepy ass clown:
“Bloggers, and specifically mom bloggers, talk a lot about McDonald’s,” he says. “They’re customers. They’re going to restaurants.” And even more important, these women have loyal followings. Why not let them behind the curtain, hope they like what they see and let them tell readers about it? “We identified them and said: ‘These are our key customers. These are key influencers for our brand,’ ” Wion says. “We need to make sure we’re working with them.”
The results are, well, pretty depressing. Here's one mom trumpeting her "wiser choice" of an Egg McMuffin instead of a Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel. And another makes the type of videos you'd think a mom blogger paid "up to $20,000" would make shilling for the Golden Arches.
McDonald's is also building its biggest store in the world in London for six weeks during the Olympics. It will be 3,000 square meters long. That's half the size of a football field (or 20 McDonald's "heavy users" lined up handle-to-handle).
