One of the nation’s most popular fast-food restaurants is opening up its kitchen to show consumers what’s in their food.
McDonalds is answering questions from Canadians about the company’s food, through a campaign called "Our food. Your questions."
It's a marketing strategy launched by McDonalds Canada in May.
Canadians can head to the campaign website and type in a question. The questions are posted on the page, along with McDonald’s responses posted in video form or just as text statements.
The campaign is meant to debunk food myths surrounding the company, including ‘does Canada use ‘pink slime?’’ ‘how much of the meat is real’ or whether chicken McNuggets are made from leftovers.
McDonald’s answer? No.
They answered the McNuggets question posed by a woman from Saskatchewan, via a YouTube video.
The company promises to answer whatever questions are asked about its food.
It’s an approach the associate chair of NAIT’s marketing program considers a great one.
“They’re trying to retain current customers and trying to get new customers to come in as well,” said Surjit Rai, of NAIT.
“It shows they’re offering a high level of transparency now. We all have those questions. They’re trying to take urban myths and answer them quite truthfully, I really like it.”
McDonalds tell CTV News answering consumer questions is necessary.
“There’s a lot of information, misinformation, that’s available on the Internet these days and we needed to have an ability to have a direct conversation and link to our customers,” said Joel Yashinsky, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of marketing and consumer business insights with McDonalds.
“We knew inherently if we could share this information in a conversational tone with our customers and not hide anything and provide a very direct and deep knowledge-based information about our food, that we could really connect to a deeper level.”
Yashinsky hopes the campaign will help customers feel better about what they eat.
“It’s important in this day and age, customers want to know and should know what they are eating and should be involved in those decisions for themselves and their families so we want to provide that information for them so they can have the experience that they enjoy and feel good about it,” he said.
In October, McDonalds reported its first monthly sales decline in nearly a decade.
The campaign is expected to spread to the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.
Click here to find out what other questions Albertans had about McDonalds – and the answers that were provided to them.
With files from Laura Lowe
