One in a series of quick posts compiled from the plane, in other words, a quick run through the ‘to review / comment’ pile…
From Hill and Knowlton, the essential link on any good public diplomacist, strategic communicator, and IO’er’s reading list:
Most people are well aware of the growing influence of bloggers, and of course the "power of mom" has been well documented for decades – combine the two and a powerful force is created. The folks at McDonald’s a few years ago decided to go head-on with a variety of myths and misconceptions and urban legends with regard to the quality of their food. I read about their latest chapter in this week’s Advertisign Age, which highlighted McDonald’s Moms’ Quality Correspondents – a group of moms that McDonald’s invites to check out where their food is made, ask questions to their nutrionists, see the ingredients and much more.
Its a great example of a company that identified a crucial challenge to their success – opinions of moms who visit their restaurants every day – and decided to open the door wide open and invite them in to have a look. And bonus points of course for McDonald’s to embrace the blogging community and provide an example of transparency that others could definitely learn from for their own efforts.
Connect with the people and get them to give the stamp of approval and they tell two friends… Any good struggle that you can’t just “kill your way to victory” can only be fought / engaged by, with, and through spokespersons the broader target audience represents. It is these trusted spokespersons that can get the most mileage out of each word. They have the legitimacy and trust and you can’t do something to blow their trust because, boy, will they be upset…
This is a great example of strategic communications, and it’s a shame that more people (notably in DOD) don’t get it. Accessibility, transparency, consistency. It’s not hard to figure out, just hard to implement given untrusting and unoriginal govt bureaucrats.