Credit: twitter.com/McDonalds
Credit: twitter.com/McDonalds

If you have watched any of the NCAA’s “March Madness” men’s basketball championship tournament this weekend, you almost certainly saw a Taco Bell commercial for its new breakfast offerings (which include a breakfast “waffle taco”!). The commercial uses about two dozen men named “Ronald McDonald” as paid endorsers (or at least that’s what the fine print seems to say) for Taco Bell’s new breakfast. Where things got interesting is that McDonald’s used the medium of social media to quickly fire back at Taco Bell. First, McDonald’s posted an image of its Ronald McDonald petting a chihuahua with the statement, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. Next, starting Monday, McDonald’s will offer free McCafe coffee until April 13th.

But what about Taco Bell engenders such a response from McDonald’s?  The answer is surprisingly simple.  McDonald’s controls about 25 percent of the fast-food breakfast market.  And numerous reports show that breakfast is the most profitable part of the day for fast-food restaurants.  Consequently, it is a natural that McDonald’s wants to protect its hard won success at breakfast.

What is interesting to me is that the tools of social media have allowed McDonald’s to launch a clever and–I assuming here because I have no inside knowledge–relatively inexpensive defensive campaign against Taco Bell.  In the days before social media, of course, there were still punches and counter-punches in the fast-food wars.  I mean, for those of us of certain age, how can we ever forget Clara Peller’s comedic bellowing in Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” commercials.  Here, McDonald’s social media response–which has gotten extensive earned media coverage–did not require the quick development of a series of television commercials, radio ads or even the purchase of full page advertisements in major American newspapers. The world is indeed different.