The Power of Social Media: Burger King Tours Real Agriculture
By Michelle Miller, The Farm Babe
The backlash from the agricultural community against Burger King’s #Cowsmenu ad campaign on social media was a swift and sharp one. The science, the terminology, the presentation, the irreverence — it was as if Burger King could do no right. This link explains how it went down and the immediate aftermath.
When I first saw the ad, I could barely finish it. I sent out a frustrated tweet including #boycottburgerking as a popular hashtag. I wasn’t the only one.
Much to my surprise, after tweeting Burger King Chief Marketing Officer Fernando Machado, I received an email invitation to have a Zoom call and it went very well. I invited him out to my farm, and he took me up on it!
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew I wanted to make it a memorable and educational experience. I wanted to bring home the fact that farmers care greatly about the planet, that sustainability is always in the forefront of our minds, that and farmers work hard to do more with less, mitigate methane and reduce our carbon footprint, all day, every day. A noble goal, cause, and common ground we all care about.
To achieve that, I expanded my plan to include more than just our farm.
On August 12 and 13, we had our meetings on the farm. For the first day, I took them to White Gold dairy farm near Madison, Wisconsin. There, Machado got to experience a dairy that has an on-site methane digester, which holds 90,000 gallons of manure. The methane is trapped and turned into renewable natural gas that is actually sold back to the grid and used to power homes and business. Poop to power, who knew? It was a great example of how farmers reduce methane. (Hey Burger King, it’s more than just lemongrass!)
This is a photo of Bob Powell (left), CEO of Brightmark, who does the digesters. Also shown is Machado (right), the Burger King executive; Gustavo Lauria (second from left), co-founder of the WeBelievers ad agency, which did the #cowsmenu ad; and, of course, myself.