In a Twitter campaign designed to highlight the work of its suppliers, McDonalds started using the hashtag #MeetTheFarmers and coupling it with links to stories about the people who provide McDonalds its food. Then, on the 18th January, they sent out two tweets with the hashtag #McDStories. This was supposed to shed light on the stories behind more of its suppliers, but that’s when things started going wrong.
Anti-McDonalds twitter users from around the world started using the hashtag with their own stories - stories which, as you can guess, are not quite as nice.
Within hours, Twitter was awash with stories of fingernails, stickers and other foreign objects found in burgers. ‘McNuggets was the last meat my wife ever ate. Said it was enough motivation to become a vegetarian. Still veggie after 10+ yrs.’ [sic] Tweeted one ‘Mactivist’, while another told the world that his brother had found a fake fingernail in his fries.
As the campaign carried on, more and more protesters began using the hashtag in their tweets in a McFlurry of anti-McDonalds messages. 'These #McDStories never get old, kinda like a box of McDonald's 10 piece' claimed one tweeter. Another said ‘Watching the fries guys drop the frozen produce on the floor, pick it up and put it straight back in the frier #McDStories’ which seemed to set the tone for further tweets.
“Within an hour, we saw that it wasn’t going as planned,” said McDonald’s social media director Rick Wion, “It was negative enough that we set about a change of course.” Despite this, Twitter users continued to post their horror stories leaving the chain with no choice but to wait for the torrent of activity to die down.
Instead of the negative stories being returned when the hashtag is searched now, however, the results are awash with various news companies using it to report on the story. But that doesn’t stop the occasional tweet from an anti-McDonalds protester with a ‘chip’ on their shoulder making it through.
It stands to reason that McDonalds won’t be making a mistake on this scale again, but nevertheless the original hashtag #MeetTheFarmers still stands and has received a good response. It all goes to show that using Twitter’s hashtags wisely can be a very powerful marketing tool, but when used incorrectly, things can go very wrong, very fast.
Let’s hope McDonalds McThink about it a bit McBetter next time...