Since founded in 1955, McDonald’s has become a household name known throughout the world. As a brand that has taken part in revolutionizing the fast-food industry, there’s no doubt that the company has some of the most innovative thinkers leading the charge.
One of these thinkers is Morgan Flatley, McDonald’s current Global Chief Marketing Officer & Head of New Business Ventures, recently named as the world’s fifth most influential CMO by Forbes in September 2022.
It might be surprising that Flatley pursued a Bachelor’s of Arts in History at Dartmouth College in 1992, instead of a bachelor’s degree in business. However, Flatley began working at Saatchi & Saatchi after graduation in account management, and later, in 2002, she went to the Harvard Business School to attain an MBA. Although this is the route less taken -having a bachelor’s degree in the humanities before returning to school in pursuit of an MBA- it’s not something that’s uncommon to see. In fact, Susan Wojcicki, the current CEO of YouTube, did something similar, studying history & literature in her undergrad years at Harvard University, before attaining a master's in economics from UC Santa Cruz, and finally, an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
After graduating with her MBA, Morgan Flatley started working at PepsiCo, a corporation that she would remain at for nearly thirteen years, from 2004 to 2017. She began as an Assistant Marketing Manager for Pepsi, but rose through the ranks during her years at the company, acquiring highly sought after positions like the CMO of Gatorade & Propel and later, the CMO of Global Nutrition, where she oversaw marketing directives for a multitude of brands, like PepsiCo’s representative nutrition brands such as Naked Juice, Tropicana, and Quaker.
A 2016 Forbes article by Jenny Rooney revolves around Morgan Flatley speaking at the 11th Annual Forbes CMO Summit, and in the article, Rooney discusses the partnership between Gatorade’s in-house marketing and the advertising company, TBWA\Chiat\Day. “She [Morgan Flatley] and the team think about the strategy as having two prongs: product work, which drives news and education around Gatorade products and innovation, and equity work, which reinforces the brand’s belief around sports and in particular the concept of winning from within, including what you put in your body.” Gatorade’s branding, like many other sports-related companies branding -like Nike, Adidas, and Powerade- all circulate around the notion that wearing or drinking their product will help make you a winner, a champion.
In the years surrounding 2016, food and beverage companies noticed that people were becoming more aware of what they were consuming and therefore eating healthier. Acting upon this, Gatorade decided to launch a line of organic Gatorade. At the summit, Flatley said that the company’s reasoning for the line was because they were “hearing it from these elite locker rooms. We would never do it because it was a mass trend. We’re doing it because we’re hearing it from elite athletes and their influencers.” G Organic launched a few months after Flatley left her position as the CMO of Gatorade and became the CMO of PepsiCo’s Global Nutrition, however, the line was discontinued due to a low amount of sales and some even accused the brand of ‘health washing’ or said that G Organic drinks still had a large amount of sugar in them.
After leaving PepsiCo in 2017, Flatley started her position as McDonald’s Chief Marketing & Digital Customer Experience Officer where the work of her & her team accumulated many accolades such as the Cannes Award for Collaboration & Culture, the Gold Clio Award for Integrated Campaigns, and the SABRE Influencer Marketing Award, to only name a few.
Flatley remained in this role for around four and a half years before being promoted in 2021 to the Global CMO and the Head of New Business Ventures, taking on the enormous task of directing marketing efforts for McDonald’s franchises all across the world.
In fact, one of McDonald’s most memorable marketing ventures in the past few years is the ad, Wanna Go To McDonald’s?, which was released in November 2022 during the FIFA World Cup. The advertisement, which brings together influencers and celebrities from around the world -like the K-Pop group ITZY, actor Jason Sudeikis from the TV show Ted Lasso, top Twitch streamer Edwin Castro, and TikTok star Khaby Lame- and is the first time that more than seventy-five McDonald’s markets around the world are launching the same campaign simultaneously. The film was shot in four various locations across the globe, using ten diverse languages and four dialects. What made this marketing effort so notable was its effort to connect people from all over the globe using an individual’s shared passion for the sport and the pride in representing their country during the World Cup.
In addition to this, McDonald’s across the world began embarking on promotional events varying by location. McDonald’s Canada offered promotional codes that fans could use to order free items when there were red or yellow cards shown during a match. In the Middle East, fans could win a free pack of fries if they took a photo of a referee displaying a red card and drew a picture of fries on it, posting it with the hashtag #WannaGoToMcD. Meanwhile, McDonald’s China dispatched eleven delivery drivers -synonymous with the number of players on a team- at midnight -which was peak viewing time- to live-stream their deliveries on TikTok.
Morgan Flatley has made her mark in marketing history, having spent five years -I wouldn’t be surprised if this number increases in the future- on the Forbes World’s Most Influential CMO List, and now standing in the Forbes CMO Hall of Fame as the only inductee of 2023.
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