Your Signal Is the Message. McDonald's CEO Just Proved It.

I have to thank my 12 year old son for this one because it came up during one of our homeschooling sessions where he wants to design a drink business … non-alcoholic of course :-).

“Dad, you know the meme about the McDonald’s CEO and the Big Arch?” … me … “ah … no”… a short Gen Alpha instruction later on what exactly to search for (because clearly I’m an old fart Gen X) … and I couldn’t believe that McDonald’s CEO, Chris Kempczinski, or his marketing team would allow this to go live.

There’s a specific kind of damage that happens when a leader’s words and actions fall out of alignment in public.

It’s not the message that fails. It’s the signal.

The McDonald’s CEO recently posted a taste-test of the new Big Arch burger. He called the burger “the product.” He described his taste test as a “big bite” and then took a notably small one, small enough to send even a Lilliputian looking for food stamps. He looked hesitant throughout and, the quality of their burgers aside, he looked like someone who’d struggle to sell a guaranteed winning lottery ticket. He is the CEO of a multi-billion dollar brand and he couldn’t sell me the burger.

The clip spread fast. Not because of the burger. Because the leader looked like he didn’t believe in it.

That’s the distinction most executives miss.

The internet didn’t debate the food. It debated belief and unluckily for the McDonald’s marketing team they couldn’t take it down fast enough to avoid it being downloaded, reworked and reshared sending it viral.

In my first book The 20% Leader I write about signal strength as a core leadership function: the idea that people don’t just hear what you say, they read how you show up. Your posture. Your language. The micro-behaviours that either reinforce the message or quietly contradict it. When they contradict it, the contradiction becomes the story.

“The product.” Two words. Distance, measured precisely.

No customer anywhere has ever ordered “the product.” That phrase belongs in a procurement report, not on camera. And the audience (however unconsciously) felt the gap between the man and what he was supposed to be championing.

Then Burger King president Tom Curtis posted a response. Apron on. Behind a kitchen counter. He took a deliberately large bite of a revamped Whopper, nodded with visible satisfaction, and delivered one line: “Only one thing missing. A napkin.”

Twenty seconds. One line. The narrative shifted entirely.

Commenters didn’t just laugh: they analysed. The environment. The apron. The bite size. The fact that he addressed his team rather than speaking directly to camera. One commenter praised the operational detail in the framing. Another pointed out that the apron wasn’t random: it has been part of Burger King’s brand language for years.

Some still called it manufactured. That matters. One commenter said they dislike watching executives cosplay as “salt-of-the-earth everyday people.” The bar is not “look casual.” The bar is: do every detail and every cue support the specific claim you’re making in this moment?

Curtis’s did. Kempczinski’s didn’t.

This is the trap I see regularly in every sector where leaders use content to build trust not just in real hospitality. The message gets rehearsed. The signal doesn’t. And the signal is what the audience actually receives.

Fast food, for the record, is not what I’d call real hospitality, no matter how many billions change hands. Call me old school or just antiquated, I don’t really give a shit. But the lesson is universal, and it applies to every operator.

Executive content is evaluated like evidence, not like intention. The audience isn’t grading effort. They’re grading coherence.

Before the next time you put yourself (or any member of your leadership team) on camera, run this check.

Does the language belong to your customer, or to your boardroom? If it sounds like an internal deck, rewrite it until it sounds like a real person ordering lunch.

Does the physical action match the verbal claim? If you say big, go big. Mismatches aren’t awkward: they’re credibility breaks.

Does the environment support the message? The setting communicates whether you’re close to the work or removed from it. Check the frame deliberately, not as an afterthought.

Would a competitor find anything here to use against you? Burger King didn’t need a strategy meeting to respond. They needed a contrast. The contrast was handed to them.

If it gets a clapback, can you stand behind it as genuinely yours? If the answer is no, it isn’t ready.

Leadership visibility is a signal function. Get it right and it compounds trust. Get it wrong and you hand the internet your own undoing, neatly packaged and ready to clip.

What’s the smallest mismatch you’ve seen turn into the loudest credibility problem?