In 2006 an online social media promotional campaign for McDonald’s Monopoly Prize Game was developed. Neither website is still currently operating due primarily as the result of real bloggers discovering the media deception on behalf of McDonald’s. Two fake web blogs were launched by McDonald’s: mcdmillionwinner and 4railroads. Neither blog had any sort of indication, disclaimer or notification that these blogs were related to McDonald’s or were official McDonald’s blogs. The mcdmillionwinner flog had claimed to be authored by Marcia Schroeder, the 2004 Monopoly Prize Game winner. Marcia Schroeder had blogged about her daily life as well as subtle complimentary statements about McDonald’s and their Monopoly Prize Game: "Some nights, we skip cooking dinner at home just to take a trip to McDonald's so we can play Monopoly. Thank goodness they have lots of variety on the menu to choose from."[1]. The other fake web blog, 4railroads, chronicled the quest of Stanley Smith who sought after all four Monopoly railroad game pieces. The 4railroad blog employed a faux documentary style to Stanley Smith’s various exploits and attempts at collecting the four railroad Monopoly game pieces.
As previously mentioned, McDonald’s decision to attempt to create an artificial grassroots marketing campaign failed when it was discovered in the blogosphere, a collective term that encompasses all blogs and their interconnectedness as an overall larger online social network, that the blogs’ authors were not whom they had claimed to be. For definitive proof of McDonald’s purposefully deceptive social media marketing strategy, on October 19th 2006 a press release was issued by the public relations firm JSH&A with the title “More than 20 Million Winners Claim MONOPOLY® at McDonald’s® Prizes”. The press release concludes with: “For an inside look at how previous winners are reaping the MONOPOLY awards and to see just how far consumers will go to win big at McDonald's, visit http://www.4railroads.com .”[2]. Shortly thereafter the press release, bloggers discovered McDonald’s ruse when it was uncovered that both the mcdmillionwinner and 4railroads blogs’ media content (i.e. videos) were hosted on the same server, 4railroads.com. Furthermore, these two unrelated blogs demonstrate that they are indeed connected through the redirection of the consumer’s web browser; the URL – 4railroads.com (prior to being taken down) when loaded redirected the consumer’s web browser to the mcdmillionwinner blog.
It should be noted however that certain blogs are legitimately created by company’s in conjunction with employees and used by various companies to push overall company marketing agendas and are fully disclosed as being operated and owned by that company. Two examples of popular blogs that feature postings from their employees are: Blueshirtnation.com Blogsouthwest.com. These blogs each feature not only written articles but employee-user generated video and other such content.
In conclusion the fake blog is reminiscent of previous dubious and deliberately misleading grassroots marketing campaigns of the past. Such attempts at public relations campaigns based on deceptive practices such as these are expressly prohibited by the Public Relations Society of America’s Code of Ethics. According to the Public Relations Society of America’s code of ethics, “Front groups: A member implements "grass roots" campaigns or letter-writing campaigns to legislators on behalf of undisclosed interest groups[3]” are ethically prohibited by the Public Relations Society of America’s Code of Ethics. I cannot think of a more perfect example of this behavior as demonstrated by McDonald’s and the public relations firm JSH&A through their total lack of corporate disclosure with the creation of their flogs.
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