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By Seb Joseph, News editor

September 4, 2015 | 3 min read

McDonald’s is using its newly-struck ties to two popular YouTube vloggers to learn how it can lift the brand’s affinity with younger people through content marketing.

Content marketing is an area of growing interest for the restaurant, particularly when it comes to growing brand trust through initiatives like 'What Makes McDonalds', 'McDonalds Better Play' and increasingly with affinity driving activity. So much so that it launched a YouTube channel, Channel Us, earlier this week to trumpet the role the brand plays in customers’ lives.

This will be done through challenges that help young people turn their ambitions into reality in just 72 hours. These tasks could include organising a fashion show and making a dream of a performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival come true, the business said. The concept will develop over 15 weekly episodes, with McDonald’s paying close attention to how viewers are engaging with the show. McDonald’s will be hoping some of these viewers will be fans of the show’s hosts Oli White and Gabriella Lindley, who it claims are among the most popular on YouTube.

White and Lindley have a combined subscriber base of 800,000 to their channels. Comparatively low against the sprawling fanbases of stars like Zoella, with nine million subscribers, but it’s emblematic of the low-key approach McDonald’s taking for its early efforts on the channel in the UK. Additionally, the business doesn’t necessarily want to give vloggers a bigger role in its marketing, which would have otherwise called for bigger names.

Instead, Channel Us is as about McDonald’s learning the secrets of why YouTube and vloggers resonate with younger people. Indeed, McDonald’s marketing manager Jen Inglis said: “To grow brand affinity with the 16-24 audience, gain stronger cut through for the brand in an increasingly crowded market and to increase participation with Channel Us – being aware, viewing, liking, sharing, participating in the challenges etc.”

It’s the restaurant’s latest attempt to be more progressive with its marketing, particularly in the digital space where it lags behind other big spending advertisers. Last month, the fast food chain told The Drum that its social media skills had rapidly improved in recent times, while globally it has expressed aspirations of amassing data offering to rival that of Amazon.

Upcoming efforts to sharpen both these digital points, alongside its burgeoning YouTube presence, will be folded into the brand’s back to basics 'Good Times' marketing strategy. It unveiled the plan earlier this month and is set to play a key role in chief executive and former marketer Stephen Easterbrook’s plan to kickstart flagging sales worldwide.

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