McDonald's China CEO livestreams McCrispy chicken

"Since the outbreak of Novel coronavirus, CEOs of many different sectors, including cosmetics, retail, food and beverages, have tried livestreaming as new way of engage consumers as live or offline events were cancelled. Compared with KOLs, CEOs typically know the product and the brand position very well, so they can usually be perfect KOL to drive sales through live streaming," said Yu.

Meanwhile, for the catering industry, though delivery or take-out services could make-up to the losses of traffic in store, its main businesses have still been affected.

Livestreaming and sending out coupons are more effective nowadays to each more consumers and bring more traffic back to restaurants, he said.

Meanwhile, to keep rejuvenating their brands, an increasing number of brands have now gone to new media platforms where younger consumers gather, said Yu.

McDonald's considers China as its second-largest and fastest growing market, and the largest franchisee market in McDonald's global system outside the United States.

By the end of February 2020, there were more than 3,500 McDonald's restaurants on the Chinese mainland.

In July 2017, McDonald's formed strategic partnership with CITIC and Carlyle to operate and manage the business on the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.