McDonald's MY consolidates social and digital duties

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McDonald's Malaysia has consolidated social and digital media duties across all its business units with OMD, A+M understands. While OMD has always been its primary media agency, this consolidation is now across the areas of paid, owned and earned media on digital, which will be completed during the first quarter of 2021. It is understood that no length of appointment has been specified. McDonald's and OMD have declined to comment on A+M's queries. The consolidation comes as IDOTYOU has decided to move on from the business after 12 years.

Dorothy Fong, founder and CEO of IDOTYOU, told A+M that the agency appreciates McDonald's for giving it the opportunity to shine, having built its Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts from scratch and establishing its social media presence.

"After 12 years, we have decided to move on and work on new brands. I would sincerely like to thank McDonald's VP and CMO Melati Abdul Hai for the opportunity. It is time to let other agencies shine," Fong said.

According to her, the team first started working on social media but eventually branched out into other aspects of digital marketing for McDonald's, such as creating ads, buying digital media, KOL management, website and games, as well as app development and video production.

"By March, we will fully hand over the marketing, social and digital aspect, but will continue on with some corporate communications projects including the McDonald's Anugerah Guru Inspirasi for Malaysian teachers and its initiatives with old folks homes," Fong said.

Ben Foo was the CMO back when IDOTYOU first came on board and McDonald's had no social media accounts, Fong said. According to her, however, Foo dared to explore new mediums and allowed the team to move into the social media space. "We started small by setting up a fan page first. We also created comedic videos for YouTube, such as I need the LAT, which helped McDonald's set itself apart from other QSR brands," she explained. Subsequently, Fong said integrating lifestyle and comedic content with KOLs into its social media content became the de facto standard for McDonald's.

"When Eugene Lee was in charge, he gave us the approval to start Twitter in 2019. This also helped it stand out from other QSR brands. We also worked on mood shots and illustrations for Instagram," she said. According to her, McDonald's also allowed IDOTYOU to experiment with different things, and the experience led to the team creating AR games. Fong added that she also enjoyed working on McDelivery and Happy Meal campaigns with current senior director digital customer engagement, Zaid Hasman, and former marketing manager Sheila Francina respectively.

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