PHILIPPINES, MARCH 11, 2011 – The Philippine Twitterverse witnessed a public disagreement between Tintin Bersola-Babao and an alleged McDonald’s Philippines Twitter account on March 8.
Tintin Babao, a popular radio and TV personality and wife of ABS-CBN newscaster, Julius Babao, started the conversation with a challenge to the user @McDonalds_ph, “I challenge [sic] u to make me a real juicy quarter pounder! I must say tho, that Mcdo fries are the best in the world!” The tweet follows an unrelated political discussion where Babao used McDonald’s in an analogy.
The supposed McDonald’s Philippines Twitter replied, “Hello, sorry you feel that way. You know as we age our taste buds age as well. I promise to make a better burger for you.”
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Babao’s followers on Twitter were quick to voice their agreement with Babao, and thought that the McDonald’s Twitter reply was a jab at her age. Retweets and tweets came in support of Babao and her opinion on the decline of McDonald’s.
Babao did consider that the Twitter account, which had over 6,000 followers, may be fake, “If you are [the official McDonald’s account], you don’t know how to handle customer complaints! Shame on you!” she tweeted.
The unauthorized McDonald’s account apologized, “In no way were we trying to insult you maam. Customer is always right.”
A few hours later, the account was shut down.
McDonald’s Philippines issued the following official statement on March 10:
"McDonald’s Philippines has no connection to the Twitter account currently being operated under the profile name ‘McDonalds_ph’ or its user name ‘Ray A. Kroc’. The sentiments or statements being expressed by this account is no way reflective of those belonging to McDonald’s Philippines or any of its employees or official third party representatives. As of today, the company is not maintaining any Twitter account.”
Babao, who has over 83,000 followers on Twitter, later retweeted a comment that @McDonalds_ph was not official, although fellow ABS-CBN personality Bianca Gonzalez tweeted that the account "was authentic as per media agency".
Brands beware: do you know who’s tweeting in your name today?
