McDonald's Corporate Responsibility Blog: Where is the Engagement with the Readers?

Happened to stumble upon McDonald's Corporate Responsibity Blog. They seem to be coming under a lot of fire for including a toy Hummer with every Happy Meal.

McDonald's response leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm traveling in Europe, on vacation with my family, but I've noticed that a lot of comments are still coming in on the Hummer issue. I know I need to offer something more to the dialogue. It seems I've been roundly criticized for my posting on the topic. I hear you and your criticisms. I have opinions. We all do. The important thing is that we listen to--and respect--one another's viewpoints. That's the mission of this blog. To be frank, I've been hoping for more comments, more dialogue. This Hummer issue has definitely stirred things up. And I think that's good. So I hope you'll continue to tell me what you think, because it's so important to me--and to CSR as well.

-- Bob

Very rightly a reader responds:

Bob, while I greatly appreciate McD's CSR efforts, I would very much like to see your response to a number of the comments left by readers to previous postings. It's very hard to have a dialog with someone who never seems to talk *back* to us. It makes your readers feel unappreciated - even if you do create another posting telling us that you appreciate the feedback... really, you do. The secret here is that the community doesn't necessarily expect you to SOLVE everything here - but we do want you engaged. When all we get from you, though, is another generic, scripted, corp-speak posting, we have absolutely no feeling that you are sincere. Please take a look at Dell's blog and see how their headline blogger responds in comments to their readers. Dell has come a long way. I hope that you and McDonald's can, too. For your reference, here is a link to a comment thread with a response by Lionel. http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/09/04/2516.aspx#comments