Conference 2011: For McDonald’s, corporate citizenship goes with brand trust like burgers go with fries
By Tim Wilson, Editor & Writer, Boston College Center
For Jan Fields, president of McDonald’s USA, corporate citizenship and commitment to building brand trust are far more than buzzwords. In her plenary address at the 2011 International Corporate Citizenship Conference, she identified them as the “guideposts to growth and business success.”
Calling trust the most important attribute for a brand, Fields remarked that if you want to assess a company’s ability to build brand trust, you ought to look at how it treats employees. And while she works in the executive offices now, Fields knows from personal experience how McDonald’s treats the people on the front lines at their counters. She worked at one of those counters 30 years ago as a young mom juggling child care and college courses in Dayton, Ohio.
Fields said McDonald’s has always treated her well and earned her trust by providing her with “the best, most valuable gift of all – opportunity.” And there are many others who share her perspective and trust. She revealed that 30 percent of McDonald’s global executives and 50 percent of franchisees once worked on a restaurant crew.
Her experiences from crew member to corporate leader, Fields explained, have allowed her to see the entirety of what it takes to build trust, a trust that is connected to every decision at the counter or in the corporate offices. She stressed that building trust is even more important today with customers who are more knowledgeable, engaged and demanding. The increased expectations are “demonstrated with feet and wallets,” creating a slow steady force for change in the marketplace.
Fields stipulated that it is not enough for a company to do a lot of things relative to corporate citizenship and trust. They have to do the right things. For Fields, that means focusing on actions that make the most business sense and mean the most to customers. “I like to call it being in your smart zone,” she said. And just like other parts of the business, Fields noted, a company must keep innovating and evolving to remain relevant.
Fields further defined being in the “smart zone” as recognizing where there are more opportunities. But while the sheer size of McDonald’s offers an incredible scope of what it can do, this also requires being focused and engaging the right people.
For McDonald’s, what makes sense is addressing a gap it faces between trust and performance. Fields remarked that despite the work the company has done, consumer trust is not keeping pace with the business strength that is illustrated by 32 straight quarters of sales growth.
For example, the company went to extraordinary lengths when dealing with concerns over cadmium related to its Shrek glasses and instituted a voluntarily recall of the drinking glasses even though they were safe under federal standards. But what McDonald’s found afterward was that rather than recognizing the company’s efforts to address their concerns, customers said they were more worried about the food.
This prompted McDonald’s to launch a brand trust strategy built on three main pillars: menu and nutrition, environmental sustainability, and people. Fields emphasized that this commitment to brand trust “is not an initiative, it’s a filter for how we make business decisions.”
Menu and nutrition – Under this pillar, Fields said, there are two key considerations. 1. There is an increasingly intense regulatory environment that affects all brands, and 2. McDonald’s must be proactive in strengthening its food image. To address these, McDonald’s keeps looking to offer more menu options and is being more vocal in telling the stories of its quality and sourcing and about its industry-leading standards in safety.
Environmental sustainability – With 32,000 restaurants around the world and 14,000 in the United States, Fields said McDonald’s recognizes that “reducing our energy is a huge way to make a positive impact.” Other ways McDonald’s is making an impact include implementation of an environmental scorecard and a sustainable land management commitment to eventually source all ingredients from third-party certified sustainable land.
People – Fields commented that a company’s reputation as an employer is a key driver of trust and that trust is the most important attribute for a brand. She addressed the criticism of those who refer to work at McDonald’s as dead-end “McJobs” by presenting a video that featured proud employees. For many of those employees, McDonald’s was the first employer that fulfilled a promise of opportunity. One young woman in the video exemplified their attitude when she said “I believe in McDonald’s because they believe in me.”
Fields said McDonald’s wants to work on its employment image and next week will address employment in a big way. On April 19, McDonald’s will be hiring 50,000 managers and crew to make what Fields called a “real statement about how we value our people and the communities in which we do business.”
Efforts like McDonald’s National Hiring Day are a part of what Fields sees as finding the “smart zone” and focusing on the right priorities to strengthen the business and the brand. It takes integrating the work and listening and evolving with customers and the larger world.
“Building your brand and earning trust takes time, persistence and consistency,” stressed Fields. “It’s a journey.”
