What Is Chickileaks? A Chinese McDonalds McNuggets Ad Campaign Promoting Food Safety

What does this tell us about McDonalds' ad Asian strategy, Chinese consumer concerns - and, well the zeitgeist? Is it working? Should we care? CalorieLab has the story:

"The McDonald’s Chickileaks campaign is a bizarre ad series in China that aims to defend the safety of Mickey D’s infamous nuggets. The term “Chickileaks” is a play on the Chinese term for WikiLeaks, according to Ad Age; Fast Company reports that the term’s literal translation is “unveil the secret of chicken grown.”

Food safety is important to Chinese consumers, who’ve battled several dangerous crises in the past few years, including melamine-tainted baby formula in 2008. The McDonald’s Chickileaks campaign features a microsite that reveals the safe treatment of McDonald’s chickens; viewers can watch video footage of “reporters” sampling chicken feed and technicians keeping tabs on the chickens.

The first ad spot for the McDonald’s Chickileaks campaign introduces the Mickey D’s commitment to producing food without taking shortcuts, as Ad Age notes. As a foreign viewer who doesn’t understand the voiceover, the commercial seems a bit morbid — after all, those cute chicks will eventually become chicken nuggets. Here it is:

Fast Company notes that the McDonald’s Chickileaks campaign isn’t meant to insinuate that its chicken is processed in a PETA-friendly way — just that it’s safe:

The goal is not exactly to convince customers that their chicken was raised in an environmentally-friendly way; it’s to prove that the chicken is safe. When we contacted McDonald’s China, we were told that their emphasis is on food safety, with regularly-vaccinated chicken flocks, the ability to track where chicken flocks come from (presumably in case of contamination), and animal and transport disinfection certificates. We’re not talking about organic, free-range chicken here. It’s more like “don’t blame us” chicken.