McDonalds Hopes McBloggers will Influence McMoms
By Laura Oppenheimer in Food on Jun 12, 2007 2:45PM
If we are weighing "want to know" vs. "don't want to know" when it comes to where and how McDonald's food is prepared, Chicagoist definitely falls on the "don't want to know" side. Ignorance is bliss, people, ignorance is bliss.
Yet McDonald's doesn't think most people are like us. The Oak Brook-based fast food behemoth will introduce six blogs next week from a team of "Moms' Quality Correspondents," six corresponding mothers who will get behind-the-scenes access to McDonald's restaurants and blog about what they see. These moms will "participate in as many as three 'field trips' lasting two to three days, and receive payment for 'reasonable travel expenses.'" The move comes at a time when McDonald's is trying to reestablish itself in the public eye after being pretty much singled out for America's obesity epidemic (see Fast Food Nation here and Supersize Me here.)
Why moms? People trust moms. Edelman PR CEO Richard Edelman told Ad Age that "'a person like you' is seen as twice as credible as a CEO and just slight better than an academic or doctor." So essentially, McDonalds is hoping that other moms will go online, read the blogs detailing the blissful conditions that both the cows are raised in and the employees work in (no more McJobs at the new, PC McDonalds) and somehow decide to serve the kids McNuggets instead of PB&J for lunch. While it may be a good idea, it seems a tad over simplistic for us. We don't really believe that people are being duped into eating fast food; everyone knows it is bad for you. The people who don't have a choice — those in a food desert — aren't going to be the ones logging on to read the latest posts. As Chicago MenuPages writes "What will the mothers say? 'Workers secretly pat off extra oil from the French Fries before enboxing them to save customers a few calories'?"
Or maybe it will help. After all, one of the bloggers told McDonald's execs that she was shocked when she realized there wasn't a microwave in the kitchen. "Seriously, I thought the food was frozen, thawed and heated in a microwave," said LaShawna Fitzpatrick-Hughes, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom from Encino, California. You know, because it is much better for the food to go in the deep fryer than the microwave.