McDStories: Perhaps the Worst Public Relations Attempt of 2012

Providing an outlet for your consumer base to easily communicate with the corporation and other loyal customers seemed like a great idea when McDonald's encouraged its Twitter followers to use the #McDStories hastag in January of last year. The Independent explores the ordeal and nitpicks some of the campaigns flaws. Social media is booming and is such an integrated part of advertising in the 21th century. Advertisement concept through social media for this reason may not be analyzed and planned out as thoughtfully as a television commercial may be. The campaign took off very quickly, but in a different direction than expected. The hash tag was used as an outlet for complaints and mockery. Examples include customers questioning the quality of food, illness complaints and frustrated employees.  McDonald's was getting bombarded from all angles of their business model and had trouble covering their bases. Ultimately, the campaigned died after one hour, which is quiet astonishing regarding the size of McDonald's marketing staff. This was a hard lesson to learn for the corporation, although consumer input can be invaluable, this campaign was not the correct way to do so and ended up created a hatred filled free for all.