McDonald's: Burgers, branding and blogs

A burger franchise behemoth has embraced blogging, not to tell the world of new products and promotions, but to facilitate communication among employees and executives.

by Helen Leggatt

mcdonalds%20mstation%20logo.gif Branding comes from within, and what better way to start than to ensure it’s regularly and consistently communicated to employees across the board. One of the world’s biggest brands is doing just that - via a blog.

McDonald’s have just launched an internal blog called StationM. It will help connect around 15,000 of McDonald’s employees across the U.S. and Canada. Overseen by blogger “RicK”, the blog encourages McDonald’s crews to share their thoughts and experiences.

"It provides us the opportunity to get information to the people who are interacting with our customers day to day," said Ben Stringfellow, senior director of U.S. communications at McDonald’s. "And provides us with a channel back to hear what's on the minds of our crew people, what they're excited about and what questions they have. We can use that information to better handle our future communications."

Free downloads and prizes are on offer to those crew members that sign up. To ensure it remains a “McDonald’s only” community, members are confirmed as such only after having supplied their national restaurant number.

While it is indeed a simple way to facilitate two-way conversations, its continued success will come down to the level of freedom of speech that the site will allow, and whether McDonald’s crews see benefits as a result of their interaction.