What’s up with the McDonald’s CEO?

Steve Easterbrook, the McDonald’s CEO, delivered a video statement to the business community and McDonald’s franchisees around the world recently. The result is a classic example of how not to do it. His performance is spectacularly awful on a number of levels. CEOs and communications people everywhere should watch the video as an object lesson in bad communications.

According to Mashable, the stock dipped approximately one percent once the video came out – so this statement literally cost McDonald’s millions. But the real reason not to make videos like this is just the sheer mind-numbing awfulness of the result. If I were a McD’s franchisee, I’d be terrified for the future of the company.

OK, enough fulminating. What, specifically was wrong with the video, and what could Easterbrook have done to make it better?

Let’s start with the content.

The statement was far too long, to begin with.
At 23 minutes (and I watched it all so that you don’t have to) it pushed (and exceeded) the natural limits of small-format online attention spans. The irony is that he could have said precisely the same things in 7 minutes that it took him 23 to say, so badly written was the presentation.

The writing was an unbelievable tissue of clichés.
The writing was empty of passion and interest, and one cliché after another. I started noting the phrases that showed up again and again in a sort of word miasma (in order to stay awake):

World-leading, focused, growth, sustainable, clear accountability, transformational, market moving, restructure, nimble decision-making, layers of bureaucracy, unlocking growth, growth-lead turnaround, unleashing entrepreneurial spirit, critical markets, growth, customer-centric, unlock growth, optimizing, everyday value proposition, breaking down old paradigms, drive excitement, drive growth, drive brand, position for future growth, bold moves, get closer to customers

This is classic CEO gobbledygook. That much is not so surprising. But that he would repeat these empty phrases over and over again – that was surprising. Repeating empty phrases don’t make them believable.

There were no stories
Readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear me say that a story – even one – would have helped to bring this talk to life. It’s astounding that in this era of awareness of the power of storytelling this talk didn’t include even one. Twenty-three minutes of empty clichés later, I was stunned at the lack. Deep into the talk, Easterbrook did mention three examples – the UK, Australia, and the US – but even those examples were described in the same clichés as the rest of the talk.

What about Easterbrook’s performance?

That was even more surprising. For twenty-three minutes, the man hardly moved. His hands appeared every now and then in a brief chopping gesture at the bottom of the screen, then disappeared again. I hope he was making burgers below the screen as he recorded the talk – he could have made more money for McD’s had he been doing so.

Lack of motion.
If you’re going to record for 23 minutes, get the CEO walking, or interacting with people or things. He could have filmed in an empty McD’s restaurant and waved a burger around. Anything to provide relief from the unending head and shoulders shot. He barely blinked. He barely moved his head. He has surely been replaced with a robot? This performance was hardly human. It was certainly not interesting. It was far from a conversation, which is what he should have been attempting.

No visual variety.
When we finally got to the three examples, we got brief B-roll of restaurants and people in the three countries. It was a huge relief, but far too little too late. And then it was back to Easterbrook!

Stupid word slides.
Occasionally, the video cut away to a slide that put some of the clichéd phrases Easterbrook was uttering up on the screen. The result was a classic example of how useless word slides are – they simply highlighted the emptiness of his phrases.

It’s hard to believe that this video is not some sort of April Fool’s joke a month late. But it is so bad that it calls into question the judgment of the team around Easterbrook and shows in pitiless detail the dangers of poor corporate communications.