UPDATE: This archived post has nothing to do with McDonald’s 2007 decision to operate 24/7.

UPDATE #2: Was it really Bob Langert that commented below? I suspect not. If it really was you Bob, please let me know and I’ll retract what I said. I think you’re a good guy and I respect what you’re doing. You don’t have to send the social security card thing either. That was just a joke.
Bob Langert is a Vice President of McDonalds. He’s been running a blog that is purported to be an open discussion about McDonald’s “Corporate Responsibility”. There’s been a lot of online debate about the merits of this blog.

Here are a couple minor points that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere:

Their URL is http://csr.blogs.mcdonalds.com/

Like many people, I pay attention to URL’s. Some people don’t, and that’s ok. To illustrate, some professionals still use aol.com email addresses for business. They clearly aren’t paying attention to the value associated with that small brand message, and the frequency in which they’re placing that message in front of their community of business associates. Just because I pay attention to that type of branding detail doesn’t mean that everyone should. It might help if they did, but that’s a different point.

In the case of McDonald’s, they surely pay attention to URL’s though perhaps not quite enough. Bob Langert’s blog reveals a slip in their strategic messaging. The URL communicates several messages:

1.) CSR – commonly accepted abbreviation of “Corporate Social Responsibility”

2.) Blogs – plural, indication that the CSR blog is one of McDonald’s multiple blogs.

3.) Mcdonalds.com – brand. Simple, standard, effective. (note: McDonald’s marketing team would absolutely not let their employees conduct business using an aol.com address. That’s just bad online branding. It’s very easy to own your own domain and email URL…)

The slip is that the word “Social” has been removed from the blog tagline. Why?

What was their marketing team thinking when they decided to go with “Corporate Responsibility” as opposed to the standard “Corporate Social Responsibility”? It’s good that they’re consistent with their “Worldwide Corporate Responsibility Report“. Yet they obviously have had CSR in mind at some point, and maybe they still do. What convinced them to explicitly remove the “Social” from their Corporate Responsibility?

Next minor issue: Bob Langert is very busy. This is no doubt a habit of highly effective people; and Bob Langert is a highly effective person. He’s not hanging around McDonald’s parking lot (no loitering). He’s not casually reclining in a high backed italian leather executive task chair. No way. Bob knows that if there’s time for leaning, there’s time for cleaning. Literally. I think Bob puts in 8 hours at his desk, and then he picks up a late shift at store #953289 off the interstate just north of Skokie. It’s a tough business.

And so I personally was not surprised by Bob’s comment that he’s “running 24/7″. That’s a good storyline. It’s hard work, and he’s hard at it.

Except of course when he’s on vacation with his family in Europe…

I sure don’t mean to get personal, but he wrote it in the very same post where he’s complaining about “running 24/7″. It’s an unusual narrative juxtaposition.

And now I’m starting to doubt that he really does work the late shift in Skokie. Hmm. Wouldn’t his coworkers there be jealous to know that Bob’s kids got to go sailing in Switzerland? How did he get the time off?

Wait, I’m starting to sound like a socialist?!

Oops, I get it – I get it. Sorry. Nevermind.
[tags]corporate blogging, message control[/tags]