McDonald's Boosts Advertising In Diverse-Owned Media: What You Need To Know

McDonald's Corp MCD has announced plans to ratchet up its advertising and marketing relationships with diverse-owned media companies.

What Happened: The company’s McDonald’s USA LLC division has pledged to increase its national advertising spending in Black, Hispanic, Asian, women and LGBTQ-owned media platforms from 4% to 10% between 2021 and 2024.

The company added its specific advertising spending in Black-owned media properties will increase from 2% to 5% of national advertising spend over this time period.

The company also stated it will build new long-term partnerships with diverse-owned media companies, with the goal of expanding its marketing supply chain and forging new communications between the McDonald's brand and the nation’s diverse communities.

The announcement follows a media partner summit conducted by McDonald’s last November with diverse-owned media companies that explored ways to broaden marketing partnerships and goals.

"We've been making serious commitments that are guided by our values, and with this latest move, we're taking action to advance diverse-owned companies across the marketing supply chain," said Morgan Flatley, chief marketing and digital customer experience officer at McDonald's USA.

"We're using our resources to support these platforms and businesses, which keep the brand at the center of culture while creating deeper relationships with our diverse customers, crew and employees."

Related Link: 5 McDonald's Analysts On Q1 Earnings, COVID-19 Recovery

Why It Matters: The company has made concentrated efforts to position itself as a corporate leader in diversity. In February, the McDonald’s corporate blog said the restaurant chain planned to “increase representation of historically underrepresented groups in leadership roles (senior director and above)” to 35% by 2025; as of 2020, McDonald’s found these demographics accounted for 29% of leadership roles.

The company also stated it would increase the representation of women in leadership roles globally to 45% within four years; as of 2020, women make up 37% of McDonald’s global leadership positions.

The new emphasis on diversity coincided with a lawsuit filed in February by Herbert Washington, a former Oakland A’s player and McDonald’s franchisee who alleged the company restricted him to low-volume locations in predominantly Black neighborhoods, then forced him to downsize after grading his locations unfairly.

Last September, 52 Black former McDonald’s franchisees sued the company for racial discrimination, claiming they were denied the same opportunities as White operators. In January 2020, two Black former executives sued McDonald’s over alleged racial discrimination in the workplace.

(Photo by Rupert Ganzer, Flickr Creative Commons.)