CASE STUDY: McDonald's 'macho' online campaign attracts 650,000 participants

Background and aim

The aim was to make Chinese consumers love the Big Mac, establishing it as an iconic product. Eating beef is often seen as reflecting a macho personality. DDB was given the task of strengthening the product equity, making the macho personality resonate with consumers, and most importantly, creating online buzz for Big Mac.

The target customer aspires to have a ‘big macho personality’ (in the Chinese terms, ‘ye-men’). This means being unpretentious, uncomplicated, uninhibited, unhesitating, non-superficial, and uncompromising. People have different ideas of what a macho personality is, but in their hearts, fathers represent the ultimate macho hero. However, people hardly show their admiration to their fathers.

Leveraging this insight, DDB China Group created an online platform, giving consumers the opportunity to pay tribute to their fathers with the Big Mac.

Execution

Partnering with one of the most popular social media platforms, Sina Weibo, DDB created a mini-site for consumers to pay tribute to their fathers.

Participants got to choose seven macho personalities they thought would best describe their father’s macho personality. Each personality reflected a different layer of the Big Mac.

Alternatively, they were given the option to write their own description of their father’s macho personality. After the selection, they were able to add their personalised Big Mac to the Big Mac Tower. The aim was to create the tallest Big Mac ever.

The mechanism employed relatively new technology. The agency created a digital interaction experience between mobile and PC via a QR code. Consumers scanned the QR code on the screen to start the game. Then, they shook their mobile phones in order to choose the description about their father’s macho personality.

After participants built their own personalised Big Mac, they were encouraged to share it on their social website in order to enter into a draw to win a Big Mac at half price, or other McDonald’s coupons.

Results

The campaign launched on 20 February and ended on 19 March. As of 13 March, the campaign had attracted 650,263 online participants, surpassing an unprecedented high KPI goal of 650,000. Additionally, 76,455 people shared their personalised Big Macs on their social websites.

Account team:
Angie Wong / Business Director
Lawrence Chiew / Account Director
JC Wu / Senior Account Manager
Renee Ho / Senior Account Executive

Creative team:
Nic Brennan / Group Creative Director
Ying Chang / Associate Creative Director
Michael Lu & Ilias Zhang / Senior Art Director
Avril Jin / Senior Copywriter