Principles of Social Media Advertising and Promotion in the Restaurant Sector

The article discusses the social media marketing campaign of McDonald's called 'Our Food, Your Questions' which aimed to enhance brand image and promote clarity in the minds of potential consumers regarding the myths and misconception related to packaging, new launches, and quality offered in a range of food products. The article also explores the social media platforms used by the company, the milestones achieved, and the impact of the campaign. Additionally, it discusses the legal and ethical principles that affect advertising campaigns in the restaurant sector.

TASK 2
‘’Which types of promotion and advertising are more appealing for a company in the
restaurant sector? In what way are legal and ethical principles affecting the
advertising campaigns in the restaurant sector?’’
1. One of the major social media marketing campaign performed by MacDonald was ask
McDonald's which was mainly focused on attaining customer engagement through
answering questions asked by its customers. It was planned to enhance its brand image
and to show that the company is concerned about the preferences and interests of their
customers. The name of the campaign organised was “ Our food, Your questions”. The
main purpose behind organising this campaign was to enhance influence of the
organisation on its loyal customers and increase familiarity of consumers with the
operations and ethics of the company. It was mainly conducted to promote clarity in the
minds of potential consumers regarding the myths and misconception related to
packaging, new launches and quality offered in a range of food products. These rumours
and misunderstanding regarding the quality of food is the main cause of organising this
campaign. This marketing campaign of McDonald's was a recurring event consisting of a
range of sessions which took place in subsequent years.
2. The main social media platforms that the organisation used in overall organisation and
execution of the company was mainly included YouTube and Facebook. The questions
1

were reported to the directed website which was created specifically for submitting
questions. These questions were submitted through logging in through mainly Facebook
accounts along with twitter. The most relevant questions that were sited mostly includes
asking concerns related to the use of ingredients and storage of food items after their
preparation. Moreover, these questions were related to the upkeep of food items and
people were asking questions related to freshness of the ingredients of food items.
YouTube was the major digital social media platform which was used in delivering
videos answering to all frequent and repeatedly asked questions. The most popular video
of this campaign starring Hope Bagozzi, creative and national marketing director at
McDonald's Canada who explained why a hamburger shows differentiation of display in
advertising as compared to when it is bought or consumed from the restaurant. The
digital marketing tools of YouTube and Facebook are effective in measuring
performance through analysing customers engagement in the campaign of McDonald's.
The company reviewed engagement of customers through addressing the questions and
evaluate number of questions asked. YouTube facilitated this campaign and performance
was evaluated through the number of views, likes, comments on videos uploaded during
the whole campaign.
2

3. While planning this campaign, the company focused on attaining maximum attention of
consumers in the question & answer session as well as show involvement in the videos
uploaded. The major milestones that the organisation attempts to attain through
conducting this campaign is to enhance its brand value and its compliance with food
standards. The organisation wanted to increase awareness of its food processes to ensure
clarity in minds of customers that it performs all processes with due diligence. The
company wanted to eliminate the factor of doubt that was created in the mind of
consumers through various misconceptions about the quality and storage of food
ingredients and items. The company promoted this campaign in subsequent years as they
know the impact of this would remain on customers in the long run. The organisation
planned on measuring the impact of this campaign through monitoring the reviews of
customers in the comment section on the uploaded videos on YouTube answering to
relevant questions.
4. MacDonald's review the activity of its success of the marketing campaign through
analysing reviews on the uploaded videos and determining the engagement of people in
submitting questions through logging into Facebook accounts. One of the video uploaded
during the course of this campaign resulted in attaining engagement of 10.3 million
audience. This video also managed to get likes of 27000 along with 91000 Facebook
shares and 21000 tweets. The result of this marketing campaign was very positive and
favourable for the company as it made the organisation “marketer of the year” in
marketing magazine which stated that “ Our food, your questions” had redefined
transparency making MacDonald's top of mind. This marketing campaign is succeeded in
generating positive response from audience as it promoted transparency in defining food
processes of the company.
5. The company has to directly take into consideration the aspects of maintaining
compliance with truth-in-advertising standards while performing the process of
marketing towards children. While directly advertising to children, the company must
consider the ethical aspects and should not adopt any manipulative tactics which can
provide deceptive information to children.
3

References
McDonald’s “Our Food, Your Questions” Video Campaign is Changing Hearts, Minds, and
Actions, 2015. [Online]. Available through: <https://tubularinsights.com/mcdonalds-our-food-
your-questions-video-campaign/>
4