Page 177 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Communications

recent visit to Oak Brook when meeting with CEO Jim Skinner.
By its very design, that openness communicates to staff that
there are no secrets, and it encourages dialogue.
This spirit of open communications is favored today by for-
ward-thinking leaders, including New York City mayor Michael
R. Bloomberg, who transformed City Hall into an open-bullpen
environment, with the mayor at its center, approachable and
open to an exchange of new ideas.

Communicating the Brand
McDonald’s is forever striking a chord with consumers. Its mem-
orable slogans from its “you deserve a break today” ditty in
1971, to its “two all-beef patty” jingles in 1974, to its current
global “I’m lovin’ it” campaign keeps McDonald’s one of the
most recognized brands in the world.
147
But those efforts require careful communications with the
company’s creative team, as former chief marketing officer Paul
Schrage told me: “Our whole thing was that a hamburger is a
hamburger—but then there’s a McDonald’s hamburger. And
what we tried to do was add dimension to that hamburger. Add
additional meaning. It isn’t just meat, bread, and potatoes. You
get a lot more with a McDonald’s hamburger, and we tried to
create that with our advertising,” Paul noted.
Open discussions and careful listening played an important
role in the ultimate communication of the brand. “You wanted
to make sure that the creatives [the creative people on the team]
felt they always had a fair and just evaluation of their work—
that their work would be looked at, listened to, considered,” Paul
continued. “Any idea is something for us to look at and consider.
In no way would you do or say anything that would embarrass
them. You wanted them to feel that, and rightly so, because we
believed it. I believed it. We had to get the best from these folks,