Misperceptions about McDonald’s food were spreading like wildfire on social media, blogs, news sites and at dinner tables across America, affecting brand perceptions and sales. To solve this problem, McDonald’s needed to do something beyond the ordinary to take back the conversation from the haters—the critics and the skeptics—and win back its customers.

To better understand the mindset of millennial skeptics, Golin conducted a massive social listening audit to learn what people were asking about McDonald’s food and developed real, candid answers to address the critics head on—and in just five months, we answered more than 40,000 questions about McDonald’s food.

By the end of the six-month long campaign, more people were talking about McDonald’s food more positively than ever before. Following an exclusive segment on Good Morning America, word of the campaign spread to hundreds of media outlets, earning 5.7 billion impressions to date. Results proved the brand was more relevant to millennials and was changing misperceptions about its food, a necessary first step in returning the luster to the Golden Arches.