Summary
McDonald’s Global Reputation and Impact Tracker (GRIT) program revolutionizes how the company evaluates and strengthens its efforts to positively impact people and the planet. Focused on making McDonald’s famous for more than its iconic menu items, GRIT gathers insights from diverse stakeholders globally to inform strategic decisions and enhance McDonald’s corporate social responsibility initiatives. The program’s measurement framework assesses reputational health across various dimensions, delivering actionable insights that support the Global Impact team’s mission to drive responsible and sustainable business growth and protect McDonald’s social license to operate and thrive in local communities.

Objective/Brief
The communications challenge was to make McDonald’s famous not only for its fries but also for its positive impact on people and the planet. In a rapidly evolving societal landscape, it was crucial to address the expectations of internal and external stakeholders regarding the environment, food quality and sourcing, community engagement, and employee relations. The objective was to establish a robust Global Reputation and Impact Tracker (GRIT) program that evaluates McDonald’s reputational health by capturing insights from diverse stakeholders including policy influencers, community influencers, and the broader McDonald’s System (e.g., owner/operators, employees, supplier/partners). In partnership with National Research Group, McDonald’s Global Communications and Insights team develop an approach helps distinguish McDonald’s brand from its reputation, emphasizing earned perceptions over controlled narratives. GRIT provides forward-looking insights to drive strategic planning, inform campaign prioritization, and guide initiatives aligned with McDonald’s
mission to feed and foster communities. The program delivers reliable, actionable recommendations that support the Global Impact’s mission to protect and enhance McDonald’s social license to operate, ultimately fostering responsible business growth and long-term sustainability.

Strategy
The strategy behind McDonald’s Global Reputation and Impact Tracker (GRIT) program was to create a customized measurement framework that thoroughly evaluates the company’s reputation and perceived impact across three core dimensions: people, planet, and business. This strategy involved distinguishing reputation health from brand, focusing on impact-based strategies rather than dining, menu, and sales data. It also moved beyond consumer-focused perceptions to understanding diverse stakeholders, such as policy influencers, community influencers, and internal audiences, providing a multi-dimensional view of reputational health.

The aim was to define reputational success based on Global Impact’s intended business outcomes, develop a global primary research tracker, and build GRIT tools and deliverables that support both long-term and short-term planning. For long-term planning, an annual report delivered at the beginning of the year shares results across McDonald’s reputational health indicators and the effectiveness of hundreds of market initiatives throughout the year, while providing forward-looking insights. It also tracks awareness and perceptions towards McDonald’s ESG commitments. The second report released mid-year provides a deeper dive into risk mitigation, communications tactics, and government relations/public policy. For short-term planning, the team links real-time flash polling in support of proactive and reactive communications efforts to the measurement framework, focusing learnings on strengthening and protecting McDonald’s reputation. This approach not only guides strategic planning and communication efforts but also ensures the company remains agile in addressing emerging reputational challenges, thus supporting sustainable growth and protecting its social license to operate.

Execution/Implementation
In implementing GRIT, McDonald’s established a comprehensive measurement framework to meticulously evaluate reputation across key areas. This framework development was guided by six key principles: connectedness (tracked progress against business outcomes), clarity (measured the effectiveness of strategies and initiatives), comprehensiveness (included multi-stakeholder, global audiences), comparability (enabled comparisons across audiences, organizations, and markets), composition (provided multi-dimensional understanding), and characteristic (focused on reputation versus brand) – ensuring the research filled gaps in the company’s tracking mechanisms. The framework operates on a pyramid structure, beginning with initiative-level measurements aligned with Global Impact’s priorities. These metrics specifically track the success of individual team plans, providing a granular view of efforts supporting the overarching vision. Global
Communications layers in more traditional campaign measurements like message penetration, social engagement, and sentiment and measures success through ongoing initiative performance reporting. This leads up to the middle layer, which demonstrates perceptions of McDonald’s positive impact to bolster confidence in its Accelerating the Arches strategy.

Metrics are reported in three indices all aligned to Global Impact’s plan. At the core of the framework is the top layer, where McDonald’s reputational health is assessed. This layer utilizes a single score encapsulating the strongest drivers of reputation based on advanced data modelling. It illustrates the role of reputation in growing and protecting the business through strategic and effective actions and communication. The framework’s structure from lagging to leading indicators ensures that while some measures take longer to influence, others allow McDonald’s to swiftly adapt and enhance efforts at a tactical level. The measurement framework and program details were finalized in partnership with the Chief Global Impact Officer and Chief Communications Officer, and earned approval from the wider Global Impact Leadership team. Once aligned, the Communications Measurement and Insights team rolled out informational videos and hosted office hours focused on GRIT for adoption.

Effectiveness of Assignment
The GRIT program’s effectiveness is evident in its ability to provide high-quality recommendations that align with McDonald’s business objectives and corporate social responsibility efforts. By shifting focus from brand health to reputation management and leveraging AMEC’s Barcelona Principles, GRIT delivers insights that drive strategic decision-making and enhance McDonald’s social license to operate. For example, insights from GRIT revealed that support for Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) is a leading reason internal stakeholders feel proud to work at McDonald’s. This has bolstered support for initiatives like McHappy Day and Round Up for RMHC, which are crucial in strengthening McDonald’s reputation.

The GRIT program’s real-time capabilities, particularly through flash polling, have been instrumental in crisis situations. By rapidly assessing stakeholder awareness and McDonald’s reputation during crises, the company can tailor its responses effectively, mitigating risks and maintaining control over its narrative. In tracking awareness and effectiveness of McDonald’s market initiatives and Global ESG commitments, teams are able to prioritize efforts that will have the most potential to move the needle in their development one-to-three-year plans. GRIT facilitates shared learnings across the markets on successful reputation-based initiatives. By leveraging data-driven insights to guide strategic decisions and initiatives, McDonald’s effectively aligns its reputation management efforts with its broader business goals. This commitment to strategic, evidence-based decision-making significantly enables us to execute swift and smart teamwork both in the short and long term