As the Listening Tour continues on, I had the pleasure of participating in a Twitter chat focused on Marketing Communications, specifically how McDonald’s can create a two-way engagement with customers and explore different ways to communicate our story.

I found it helpful to chat with parents, marketing industry professionals, nutrition experts and @McDonalds Twitter followers about how we can continue to evolve our advertising and promote the brand responsibly. Your feedback is essential to helping us communicate McDonald’s messages in the right way. From our chat, my biggest takeaway is your desire for direct engagement, transparency, and communication, particularly as it pertains to nutrition information.

In response, my team will continue to build on our commitment to clear, transparent and engaging communications. We were happy to see your great response to our new ad campaign featuring real  farmers showing how they grow the food that we serve  in our restaurants. Additionally, our online and social media platforms will continue to expand so that more customers have more opportunities for one-on-one interactions. Twitter and Facebook are great avenues for this type of dialogue. Additionally, for 10 years, we have had a 1-800 customer satisfaction line where customers can speak directly with our representatives and express their concerns or ask questions. We are also very excited about our newly designed My Meal Builder on mcdonalds.com , which allows you to create and customize your meal and receive the nutritional breakdown of menu items for you and your families. Providing nutrition information is something we’ve been dedicated to for more than 30 years.

As you may know, McDonald’s USA President Jan Fields and Senior Director of Nutrition Dr. Cindy Goody started the Listening Tour by engaging and listening to influential moms about our Happy Meal improvements and nutrition commitments. Furthermore, McDonald’s entire Marketing Team is committed to responsible marketing and children’s well-being, so we welcomed your feedback on  making nutrition fun for kids, including the use of mobile applications, game incentives and additional online tools.

Again, I thank you for your time and your willingness to share your thoughts with us. To continue the dialogue and stay connected with the Listening Tour via Twitter, follow us at the @McDonalds handle. Stay tuned for more things to come from McDonald’s in 2012 and continue to check back the Listening Tour website at McDonalds.com/Changing.

--Neil

Neil Golden
Chief Marketing Officer
McDonald’s USA