A Twitter campaign by McDonald’s aimed at spreading good news about the firm has backfired spectacularly – with people using the #McDStories to highlight their worst experiences of the fast food chain.
The exercise began with the firm deciding to share the “love and passion” that goes into producing the beef for "our burgers”.
It continued with an invitation to meet “some of the hard-working people dedicated to providing McDs with quality food every day”.
But rather than opening the floodgates for praise, the move prompted an outburst from users who began posting the specially-created hashtag alongside horror stories.
Tweets began to arrive from customers claiming to have found fingernails in their food, to vomiting stories and grisly stomach complaints allegedly caused by the company's fayre.
Animal rights activists also got in on the act, with Peta using the hashtag to link to an article claiming the chain used mechanically separated chicken for it’s nuggets – a suggestion that saw a swift denial from McDonalds.
Rick Wion, the company’s social media director admitted the campaign had backfired.
He told Paid Content: “Within an hour, we saw that it wasn’t going as planned. It was negative enough that we set about a change of course.”