McDonald’s Features Farmers In New Marketing Program

Local farmers’ markets may be the hot trend right now, but McDonald’s believes that U.S. consumers are becoming more interested in where their food comes from, regardless of the size of the farm. The QSR giant last week launched a national “field-to-fork” ad campaign that emphasizes the sources of the food it serves. The blitz of ads that utilizes television, print, online and digital means shines the spotlight on some of the growers and ranchers who supply food to McDonald’s. “This is the first time we’ve done a ‘source’ campaign featuring farmers,” Ashlee Yingling, a McDonald’s spokesperson, told SN. “We had a campaign a few years ago called, ‘What We’re Made Of,’ but it focused on the products themselves.” The goal of the earlier campaign was to make it clear that the food McDonald’s serves is not heavily processed, Yingling said. In the “source” campaign that kicked off on Jan. 2, farmers and ranchers who supply McDonald’s are featured in ad videos. One shows potato farmer Frank Martinez sitting amidst a huge mound of potatoes just harvested from his land. As Martinez bites into one of the potatoes, a loud crunch is heard. Then, Martinez, facing the camera, says, “They’re good now but even better as fries.” Later in the video commercial, he says, “Only the best potatoes in the world can make world-famous fries. Mine make the cut.” He was photographed on his farm near Warren, Wash. Other suppliers featured in the campaign include lettuce farmer Dirk Giannini in Salinas Valley, Calif., and beef producer Steve Foglesong at Black Gold Cattle Co. in Illinois. Foglesong says, in another commercial, “I’m what you’d call a beef snob. Fact is, you can’t get great taste without great quality.”...more