The great Elton John wrote “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” in 1976. The sentiment is true today.

Admit it. We struggle. Struggle to say “sorry.” It’s simple, short, effective, but often challenging to say to a friend or a partner, and arguably even harder for big companies with lawyers (love you guys) just doing their job.

It’s 2024 and McDonald’s showed us how effective a simple “sorry” is, how communicating in a crisis should be done.

The news of the October 2024 deadly E. coli outbreak in 13 states caused by the slivered onions in the chain’s Quarter Pounder was a big deal. It was in the headlines, along with devastating floods, multiple wars and a pressure-cooker of an election in the U.S.

McDonald’s had a crisis. The company knew it. It responded in multiple ways. But this post on X from October 30 “got me” and I knew I had to talk about it!

It’s everything our Spoken Word team preaches when we do our presentation, crisis spokesperson, media strategies trainings, you name it. We are all about “Less is More,” we stress clarity, empathy and considering your audiences when deciding what to say and how to say it.

Note what McDonald’s is saying here and how it is structuring its message.

It is succinct. It draws the consumers in with clear headlines and appropriate choice of colors. Yes, it’s their brand color scheme, but look how it’s organized. If you ate at this restaurant, wouldn’t you want to know what the company knows? Yes! You’d be eager to find out what they’ve done to fix it and next steps.

No generalities or unreadable vagueness. Not too many words. Facts.

Most importantly, McDonald’s apologizes!

It’s simple. “We are sorry,” they said.

And you know what, I believe them. Don’t you?

P.S. Finally, a quick note to our own audiences. This level of information density is perfect for social media, but not for one PowerPoint slide. Engineers, we see you!!! Those of you who’ve had our presentation training might feel you’re back in class! If you were doing a presentation with similarly structured information, we’d encourage you to split it into four slides! “Less is More.”