Guest post by Mikkel Andersen, digital consultant, Burson-Marsteller Copenhagen
One of our local clients is McDonald’s Denmark and we have done some cool work together through time – also when it comes to adopting a more digital view on communication. McDonald’s Denmark is like most large companies subject to massive online chatter and quite a few of their stakeholders are more or less only online. This presents new challenges and even though McDonald’s is a youthful brand using digital PR to improve communication and interaction with stakeholders it is a process to master the newest paradigm of PR.
Unfortunately, we are not so lucky that all companies in Denmark share McDonald’s interest in and curiosity of digital PR – as seen in our own BM Nordic blog survey among listed companies: 0 of 20 public listed Danish companies blogs… 
I can imagine that we are not the only ones experiencing some sort of scepticism towards digital PR still. We have often sought for a good digital ram to pierce a hole through this “digital hype” perception and therefore, I would like to share the digital PR campaign that we have just completed for McDonald’s Denmark – a digital employer branding campaign designed to attract new employees with manager potential to the McDonald’s Denmark restaurants.
As in many other countries, McDonald’s Denmark employs young talented people and to a lesser degree this group can still be reached through the traditional media. We urged McDonald’s Denmark to consider a more digital platform for communicating their messages. We created a micro site where potential employees could learn more about a career at McDonald’s, we created a digital teaser movie to attract attention of the digital youngsters pushing that at McDonald’s you will have a fast track to a managerial career. Besides these two larger digital projects we did online banner ads at youth sites, a downloadable ring tone and of course PR in the more traditional sense. (All sites are in Danish … I am sorry but check them out anyway.
The campaign has just ended and the results of the digital PR campaign are quite uplifting. Before the digital campaign McDonald’s Denmark’s 83 restaurants had on average 500 job applicants per week combined. The first week after the campaign had ended in April 2009 the figured had increased six fold to approx. 3,000 per week. For McDonald’s this is what mattered. They could see a quick ROI, that the target group was exposed to the messaging and found it interesting and acted upon it. Furthermore, for McDonald’s Denmark it is equally important to continue to nurture its image as a good workplace and a good place to start a career.
We will still encounter some sceptical clients when throwing digital PR tools on the table. However, as our track record grows companies listen more and more and I believe that we are well on our way to transforming a giant bit by bit…
