Clearly, hacking is a very big topic for the new Trump administration. Fast food, and the McDonald’s brand in particular, are big favourites of Donald Trump. After you read this post, check out the TV commercial below from 2014, and its chilling last line of dialogue.
In a truly unfortunate convergence of these threads, McDonald’s announced yesterday that its corporate twitter account had been compromised (hacked) and that was the reason for the tweet below, sent out earlier in the day from their corporate Twitter account.
This was discovered quickly and removed, but it was live long enough to garner a number of responses. My favourite is this one:
I’m sorry, but this is one of those things that’s funny if it doesn’t happen to you. McDonald’s is one of the few consumer brands that was well-positioned to benefit from Donald Trump as President, and now that’s in question, if only because it’s hard to predict what Trump’s personal reaction will be, and therefore, his next tweet.
Marketers must be aware that the best laid brand plans can go horribly wrong in social media. This particular brand hacking incident must have involved a McDonald’s person, past or present, who acted intentionally or otherwise. Brand security starts from within and starts in the marketing department.
And from 2014:
- Main image credit: based on an image from Shutterstock.
