McDonald’s

Changing attitudes towards the world's best known brand

Sector: Food & Wine
  • Public Relations
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The Challenge

Fast food company McDonald’s is one of the world’s best-known brands.

communikate et al managed McDonald’s public relations needs in South Australia for a decade, from 2003 to 2013.

As a global brand, McDonald’s daily challenge was communicating the positive changes and contributions it was making as a business and employer and to meet customers’ changing needs.

Our Approach

Our ongoing communications strategy involved:

  • Publicising new announcements including the new ‘healthy’ menu when salads were introduced
  • Coordinating media briefings during CEO visits to SA
  • Identifying speaking opportunities
  • Speech and copywriting
  • Leveraging national and local sponsorships through the media including McHappy Day and Clean Up Australia Day
  • Issues management
  • Publicising Ronald McDonald House Charities

We also created the McDonald’s Get Active Sports Awards, held in conjunction with Channel Ten’s Simply Footy. This program was designed to promote healthy active lifestyles among young sports people.

The Outcome

During our 10-year partnership with McDonald’s we were instrumental in helping to change the attitudes of key stakeholders towards the world’s best-known brand.

We worked closely with the licensee community, state marketing team and national public affairs team resulting in:

  • National initiatives being leveraged locally
  • Positive media stories through our proactive approach including TV news stories, business stories and features in the Careers pages, in addition to regular segments on Ten News and in Messenger Newspapers through the Get Active Sports Awards
  • Unprecedented media coverage

Let’s talk

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What our clients have to say

Following the successful development of our new website, communikate et al has maintained a proactive approach to the refinement and improvements of content and key messages in collaboration with our team. They embraced and supported us in all communication relating to the impact of COVID-19. They’re a friendly and responsive team with all requests being eagerly supported.

Chief Executive, Clayton Church Homes

communikate et al were an integral part of the King William Road upgrade team from the initial community consultation right through to completion. The brand they created fit the project perfectly. They took the time to understand the complexities and always delivered with strategic oversight, ensuring things were done with purpose and meaning. Having them on board was invaluable.

Akarra Klingberg
Coordinator Business and Economic Development, City of Unley

communikate bring a valuable offering to project delivery mainly due to their industry experience in navigating through complex situations by providing balanced points of views with focused outcomes.

Mark Van Roekel
Capital Delivery Manager, Flinders Ports Holdings

communikate et al has become an important and trusted partner... They share our passion. We greatly value their flexibility, their responsiveness, their turnaround times, their honest appraisal of projects and their collegiality. Most of all we love the fact that they have supported our focus on achieving outcomes for older people.

Jane Mussared
Chief Executive, COTA SA

We have been hugely impressed with the way communikate et al have immersed themselves in learning our brand and respecting our approach. It felt like they just ‘got us’ from the start! It has been such a pleasure working with their professional, smart and dynamic team.

Jocelyn Marsland
Manager – Communications and Marketing, Emerging Minds: National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health

communikate et al has been our trusted partner for strategic communications and advice over a number of years. The team is always responsive and reliable, and the quality of work is first rate.

Anita Harvey
Head of Brand & Marketing, Fullerton Health Australia

communikate et al understood our uniquely commercial and political landscape to quickly become a valued member of our team. They’ve supported our major events and activations with great results… and navigated and mitigated risk when needed. Put simply, they’re responsive, supportive and just as invested in Rundle Mall’s success as we are.

Johanna Williams
Former General Manager, Rundle Mall

It has been excellent working with communikate. They have been very professional throughout our project and their creativity has delivered a unique product that captured our needs in an exciting and unexpected way. I look forward to working with them more in the future.

Matthew Thomson
Communications & Marketing Coordinator, Uniting Country SA

communikate were initially engaged to assist in rebranding and marketing. I was most impressed with the way they listened, interpreted our ideas and turned them into something the whole community took pride in…. Their strategy helped us to achieve strong enrolment numbers… I would highly recommend them if you are looking for a professional, innovative, talented and highly relational marketing (and more) agency.

Peter Daw
Former Principal, Mercedes College

Could not be happier with the team at communikate et al. They understand us, and that is reflected in the brand assets they crafted for our business. The positive feedback has been overwhelming.

James Kennett
Exe EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, Kennett Builders