Imagine having a client like McDonald’s that is so globally famous that you don’t even need to display the brand’s logo or name in ads. TBWAParis, which has worked with McDonald’s in France since 1985, has leveraged the power of the fast food brand’s menu in its latest campaign, which features out-of-home ads of a…
McDonald’s is celebrating its “all-time favorites” with a campaign that tells us just how much everybody loves Chicken McNuggets and strawberry milkshakes—without saying it outright.
Each print ad, from Leo Burnett London, features a dead-simple shot of a classic McDonald’s food item, just above a search bar with a couple of letters typed in. What you’re meant to notice is that the first autocomplete result is always the product’s name … because people are way more interested in French fries than French kissing!
With the review of McDonald’s creative account reportedly stretching out to the end of the summer, Leo Burnett Chicago launched a campaign promoting the fast food giant’s decision to remove all artificial preservatives from its Chicken McNuggets.
In the 60-second spot “A Better Chicken McNugget,” set to a cover of Cyndi Lauper‘s “Time After Time,” two fans of the popular menu item interact across a split screen. The boy on the left side of the screen appears to be growing up at some point in the 80s, the girl on the right the present day. Over the course of the ad, the boy shares some of his favorite things with the girl, and as he passes each item to her side of the screen, it evolves, including a bike, a video game controller and, at the spot’s conclusion, a Chicken McNugget. The spot ends with the tagline “The simpler the better.”
The spot also ends with the touching revelation that the boy is the girl’s father, passing on his love of basketball, video games, bicycling and chicken nuggets to his daughter. “A Better Chicken McNugget” utilizes nostalgia to remind its viewers of their own positive childhood memories of the brand while attempting to convince parents who may have shied away from the chain due to concerns over its ingredients that it’s something they can feel good about sharing with their children.
That’s a pretty good formula to try to win back such customers, and it might just help Leo Burnett Chicago convince McDonald’s to stay with the agency as well.
In addition to the broadcast spot, the campaign also includes a full-page print ad which ran in The New York Times and the Washington Post yesterday. That ad addressed some of the changes the chain has made to its menu (its pork sausage patties are now free of artificial preservatives).
Yesterday McDonald’s appointed Colin Mitchell as global vice president for the McDonald’s brand. In the new role, Mitchell will move to Chicago and take responsibility for communicating McDonald’s brand vision and positioning throughout the company’s global organization. He will report to McDonald’s global CMO Silvia Lagnado.
The appointment comes amidst a creative review which McDonald’s launched in April in an effort to consolidate its U.S. ad business. WPP subsequently dropped out of the review last month, citing unusual financial demands and leaving Omnicom’s DDB and Publicis’ Leo Burnett as the remaining finalists.
The two agencies are completing the final stage of the pitch this week. In May, various sources told Adweek that McDonald’s had made “unheard of” demands of its potential agency partners, which must allegedly operate at cost for all future projects as part of a contract that forbids agencies to make a profit without meeting certain unnamed performance goals.
Mitchell arrives at McDonald’s from Ogilvy & Mather, where he has spent the past sixteen years. Most recently, Mitchell served as worldwide head of planning at the agency in a role he has held since February of 2008. While with Ogilvy & Mather, he has worked with brands including IBM, Coca-Cola, BlackRock and Cisco. Mitchell is also a board member of the Advertising Educational Foundation and the Advertising Research Foundation, as well as a Fellow of the Partnership for New York City.
“Colin is widely respected as one of the brightest and most talented planners in the advertising industry and we are delighted to welcome him to McDonald’s at such an exciting and important time,” Lagnado said in a statement. “His invaluable experience working with major global companies and his passion for brand vision and strategy will have a lasting impact in our business.”
Time was, McDonald’s put toys in their Happy Meals to promote movies. Now they just dye their burgers, we guess. McDonald’s China is making chicken and pork sandwiches with special red and green buns in advance of the Angry Birds Movie, and they’re hardly a welcoming sight.
Wasn’t it fun when we were kids to doodle on restaurants’ paper placements with crayons? Well, McDonald’s has introduced a high-tech, musical version of that sort of play with McTrax—a snazzy placemat that acts like a little music production station.
TBWANeboko in the Netherlands created McTrax. The placemat, developed with This Page Amsterdam, uses conductive ink, a small battery and a thin circuit board with 26 digital touchpoints. You put you phone on it, download an app and make music with in-house produced audio loops, synths and musical effects. You can also record your own voice.
For something proposed as a peace offering, this McWhopper idea from Burger King sure seems to be escalating the burger wars.
Last night, Denny’s blitzed its Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts with the proposal to partner with Burger King on creating “a Slampper© or a Whammper© or a Whoppaslamus-rex© or something.”
The diner chain is volunteering as tribute in these hunger games to take the place of McDonald’s, which meekishly declined Burger King’s invitation this week to create a McWhopper in honor of Peace Day.
hey @burgerking how about a Slampper© or a Whammper© or a Whoppaslamus-rex© or something? pic.twitter.com/zWHXfgIPYV
— Denny’s (@DennysDiner) August 27, 2015
(As of this morning, Burger King hadn’t responded, but you can bet the socially irrepressible chain has something in the works.)
As we at AdFreak discovered by assembling our own McWhopper, the not-so-subtle goal of Burger King’s proposal likely was to show how much larger and generally dominant the Whopper is when paired alongside a Big Mac.
Denny’s seems to be supplanting that strategy by offering to put its even beefier burgers into the mix, potentially dwarfing the Whopper’s flavor profile. Denny’s fans, like this one on Facebook, don’t seem to think they’d get much out of the deal: “C’mon Denny’s… don’t stoop to their level. Ever since you changed your burgers a couple of years ago, Denny’s is light years ahead of any of the junk Burger King or McDonald’s sells!”
PS: Boss, please don’t make me go create and try this myself. I promised my kids I’d live to see them graduate middle school.
As a wise Jeff Goldblum once put it, we were so busy wondering if we could, we didn’t ask if we should.
Well I’m here to tell you: No. No we should not.
Burger King deserves credit for its masterful PR move this morning of running full-page newspaper ads offering to partner with mega-rival McDonald’s on a McWhopper, created in celebration of Peace Day.
This beefy olive branch was described as “the tastiest bits of your Big Mac and our Whopper, united in one delicious, peace-loving burger.”
Sadly, the world will never know what such a combination might have looked or tasted like, because McDonald’s quickly declined the invitation.
But it was too late for those of us at Adweek, who were already obsessing over this mythological beast of a burger.
As for me, I’m a man of action. So I texted an accomplice, drove to Burger King and then headed across the street to McDonald’s. Bags in hand, we settled in at a nearby park and commenced with our foray into forbidden science.
Part 1: What we bought
For fairness, I matched up the Big Mac with the Double Whopper with Cheese. We got two of each, along with some Chicken Fries and McDonald’s fries, which are normally the only things I’d buy at either chain.
Finally, we were ready to unite them in body and spirit.
Part 2: How we assembled the meaty manticores
Here’s the challenge I put to myself and my laudably accommodating friend, Tanya:
“It’s like when two people in their 30s get married. They both have a lot of stuff, so you have to decide what gets kept and what gets tossed when they move in together. So what survives the Big Mac-Whopper marriage?”
My version:
Top bun: Whopper
Top meat: Whopper
Middle bun: Big Mac
Bottom meat: Whopper
Bonus meat: Big Mac
Bottom bun: Whopper
Tanya’s Version:
Top bun: Big Mac
Top meat: Whopper
Middle bun: The top bun from a Whopper
Bottom meat: Big Mac
Bottom bun: Big Mac
Part 3: How they tasted
Mine: Like way too much low-grade beef. Admittedly, I included a combined total of three patties, so the meat-to-not-meat ratio was regrettable. Also, with so much mayo slathered on the Whopper bun and special sauce on the Big Mac components, the texture was rather disturbingly … creamy. I ate half of it and then it basically just disintegrated into primordial muck.
Tanya’s: “The first thing you taste is the Whopper. The Whopper’s larger, and has more of a distinct taste regardless. No matter what, you just taste The Whopper.” So there you go, the McWhopper is basically just an overly expensive and logistically challenging-to-assemble Whopper.
Part 4: Our recommendation for those trying this at home
Well, for one: Don’t.
Nothing about this experiment felt worthwhile, other than the fact it was a good excuse to catch up with a friend on a lovely late-summer day. If the weather is crappy and you hate being around other people, I certainly don’t recommend trying this.
But if you must, we recommend Tanya’s approach:
Top bun: Big Mac
Top meat: Whopper
Middle bun: Whopper top bun
Bottom meat: Big Mac
Bottom bun: Big Mac
Part 5: Bonus creation – Chick ‘n’ Fries
Now this was a mashup we could get behind:
Could this part-time McDonald’s worker in Taiwan become the next Alex from Target?
The stunning, porcelain-doll-faced gal, who has earned the unofficial title of “McDonald’s Goddess” to go along with her adorable nickname, WeiWei, appears in a series of workplace photos that reportedly have folks rushing to the fast-food joint for a gander at her.
The Taipei City restaurant should be used to this kind of attention by now, since Wei Han Xu and her fellow burger slingers have been dressing as maids, cheerleaders and other cosplay favorites for the last few years. WeiWei, a student and aspiring model who could easily double as an anime character, has seen a jump in her Facebook and Instagram followings—now about 150,000 fans combined—since the snapshots made their way to social media. She’s also snagged a few appearances on local variety and talk shows.
But she has yet to reach the lofty heights of Texas teenager Alex, with his 1.9 million Instagram and 750,000 Twitter followers. That poor kid, though, had to hide in the stockroom after his photo, shot surreptitiously and posted on Tumblr, went viral. (His managers at Target said there were too many lovesick girls creating chaos in the place.)
Despite her notoriety, or maybe because of it, WeiWei is still, by all accounts, working the front counter.
What are we all but a bunch of emoji with arms and legs and a hankering for McDonald’s?
An insane new French ad for fast-food chain shows a city full of people going about their daily lives—driving around with friends, getting a shave at the barber, break dancing in the streets. But instead of human heads, they all have giant, 3-D, cartoon faces.
The soundtrack—a bubbly electro pop cover of the Buggles’ 1978 classic “Video Killed the Radio Star”—almost makes the ad feel like a music video. But the song, a rendition apparently created specifically for the ad, when coupled with the visual concept, which feels fresh in and of itself, seems to imply a critique of technology that’s more contemporary than the one baked into the lyrical hook, and a bit out of place for a major fast-food marketer.
McDonald’s and agency BETC Paris have explicitly created a world where digital communication reduces facial expression—a wildly subtle and complex phenomenon—to a series of shiny yellow orbs representing monolithic and equally monochromatic feelings. That’s a pretty excellent premise for a video, but the brand presents it here without any of the real anxiety about change that defines the text of the original synth pop song—or the deadpan theatricality with which the Buggles promoted and performed it; or, say, the more explicitly ironic bitterness and dissatisfaction of the 1996 alt-rock cover by the Presidents of the United States of America.
Instead, McD’s presents everyone being a stiff caricature of their own ids as a good thing. And that only really makes sense if you’re a faceless corporation that deals in cardboard platitudes like Happy Meals peddled by a brightly colored clown mascot, and other overly processed hamburgers that can save the doomed love lives of awkward young adults.
It probably doesn’t help the brand’s case that the tagline, “Venez comme vous êtes,” which translates to “Come as you are,” inadvertently bastardizes the spirit of another classic song about the tension between individuality, conformity and perception. (To be fair, that tagline has been around for years—and McDonald’s France has used it to, among other things, promote gay rights.)
Within the emoji ad’s own construct, it includes clever little tidbits—some of them perhaps more deliberate than others, like the kid who turns from angel to devil, as opposed to the weatherman with the smarmy, oafish look on his face. The spot also deserves credit for doing a distinctly better job of getting its message across than some other emoji-driven attempts at marketing. (In fact, it’s way simpler and more accessible—if less delightful—than some of the brands that decided to try to invent their own emoticons.)
It’s also worth noting that BETC Paris is experienced in creating absurd viral sensations, having graced the world with Evian’s classic roller-dancing babies, and the agency appears to be swinging for the fences again here. But the idea, for all its potential, suffers as a result of its attempt to be broadly appealing to what’s seen as the perpetual sunshine ethos of millennials. In that, it turns into a nauseatingly saccharine panacea—without near enough sarcasm or skepticism about what it’s actually saying.
In fact, the insistence on framing a fundamentally disturbing set of images as lighthearted and upbeat can’t keep the dark subtext and implicit social critique at bay. So, the whole thing ends up seeming unintentionally dystopian, like the Kia hamsters tossed into a meat grinder with a deadmau5 helmet and Katy Perry fever dream, with the resulting slime squeezed out into a bunch of circular, cookie-cutter nuggets, baked golden and plopped onto a bunch of necks.
Ultimately, it mostly adds credence to Taco Bell’s case that Ronald McDonald is actually a Stalinist looking to control all aspects of your life—only he’s way more insidious than you thought, mostly interested in brainwashing us into grinning idiots by defining happiness in terms of Big Macs and faces made of pixels.
Plus, you know the spot can’t be trusted because it doesn’t show anyone who just gobbled a McDonald’s burger and turned into the emoji for “I have a stomach ache and I wish I hadn’t eaten that”—which isn’t available yet, but is slated for release in 2016.
Heat-sick Dutchmen rejoice! McDonald’s in the Netherlands teamed up with outdoor ad company JCDecaux to create a billboard with heat-sensitive paneling that contained 100 free McFlurry cups. When it gets too hot outside, the panel opens, and people can take a cup to redeem for a free McFlurry.
Not sure how this even qualifies as a billboard, really. If anything, it’s more like a vending machine. I do love the hubris of McDonald’s challenging the sun, though (as implied in the video for this thing).
Unfortunately, the temperature has to be 101.48°F for it to open, which seems unfairly high for this kind of promotion, unless Dutch summers are more brutal than I’ve been told. I live in Maryland, where even the low 90s feels like death thanks to the crushing humidity.
If it ever got hot enough down here to trigger a free McFlurry, I wouldn’t be able to accept it because I would be a puddle of sweat and curse words by then.
If you ever wanted to see a musical set in a McDonald’s, your ship has come in.
McDonald’s lead Hispanic agency, Alma in Miami, on Friday will roll out “A Little Lovin’,” a three-minute bachata musical starring the 20-year-old Dominican American singer Leslie Grace. At the beginning, she is seen sitting in McDonald’s with a case of writer’s block, but a McDonald’s employee (played by Daniel “Cloud” Campos, who also was the director and choreographer) soon inspires her to find “A Little Lovin’ ” all around.
As musicals do, it gets wildly and ridiculously energetic from there.
Alma repurposed Grace’s “Solita Me Voy” song for the spot. “About a year ago, Leslie was warming up for an interview and reminiscing about her happy childhood and going to McDonald’s with her dad, which was down the street from her mom’s salon,” said Luis Miguel Messianu, president and chief creative officer at Alma DDB. “She didn’t know she was being recorded, but my friend from Sony shared the sound byte with me and we’ve been working on an idea for her to partner with McDonald’s ever since.”
CREDITS
Talent
Leslie Grace: As Herself
Danny: Daniel Cloud
Dad: Cris Judd
Daughter: Tatiana McQuay
Film Crew
Director: Daniel Cloud
Executive Producer: Danielle Hinde
Producer: Courtney Davies
Production Supervisor: Rose Krane
Assistant Production Supervisor: Josh Reed
McDonald’s Marketing Team
VP Brand & Marketing Content: Joel Yashinksy
Director of Hispanic Consumer Marketing: Patricia Diaz
Manager of Social Engagement- US: Jenina Nunez
Alma Agency
President/Chief Creative Officer: Luis Miguel Messianu
VP Executive Creative Director: Alvar Sunol
Creative Director: Iu La Lueta
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Beatriz Torres-Marin
Senior Art Director: Luis Aguilera
Art Director: Andres Schiling
Director of Production: Adrian Castagna
Producer: Diana De La Parra
Account Director: Karen Udler
Account Supervisor: Cristina Lage
Senior Strategic Planner: Tamara Sotelo
Sony Music Entertainment US Latin
Senior Director of Business Development: Melissa Exposito
Business Development Analyst: Isabelle Duran
Manager: Jose Behar
Management: Lorena Fusilier
Management: Larissa Leal
Road Manager: Francisco Martinez
One of our readers REALLY wanted us to post on this Definitely Not News News. It seems reporter James Lileks of the Minneapolis Star Tribune simply could not make sense of this line, which he saw on a local McDonald’s billboard last month (pic via Lileks):
The writer, who is a big fan of both lunch and Judge Judy screenshots, implored his readers to help him figure it out. He writes:
“Are the treats excited? About what? Being consumed? Is the message NOUN / YOUR EMOTIONAL STATE, presuming you respond with Pavlovian slavering to the prospect of the sugar-ration the picture presents?”
Mr. Lileks is almost certainly being facetious here, as the line is meant to be read as “[There are] treats [and I am/we are] excited.”
A bit of punctuation might help calm his mind. Some alternate taglines, listed by degree of clarity:
The main problem here is that Mr. Lileks–who is in his late 50’s and wields some degree of influence with the “get off my lawn” crowd–is not a member of this ad’s target demographic, that being young people who don’t have time to punctuate.
Or, as McDonald’s sees them, idiots.
@LaurieRiepe We got so excited for summer and summertime treats, we made up an expression!
— McDonald’s Minnesota (@McD_Minnesota) June 30, 2015
McDonald’s won’t just sate your hunger and comfort you when you’re down. It will actually save your aborted love life.
Or so claims a new U.K. ad from Leo Burnett London. The burger chain plays matchmaker, featuring a couple with basically no chemistry on what appears to be a first date. That is, at least, until the end, after they’ve parted ways unceremoniously and slunk off separately to grab a bite at McDonald’s, where … well, you’ll see.
It’s a nice thought for a brand that trades in tasty greasiness and the illusion of happiness. He’s like a British Bradley Cooper. She’s like a British Alison Brie. The tight scenes—a nonsense art gallery, a botched trip to the bowling lanes—contribute to the credible sense of awkwardness. And coincidences that might serve as ice(berg) breakers (sorry) could easily be mistaken for fate (especially because the relatively small menu seems to improve the odds of alignment).
Unfortunately, the ending really is nothing but a deus ex (big) mac-hina (sorry, again). Given their social skills—or lack thereof—running into each other again would probably, in reality, just make the whole situation even worse.
Are they really going to sit together at that point? How long can they talk about french fries and barbecue sauce, when they clearly have nothing else in common? Plus, even if it goes well, they’re probably just replacing heartache with stomachaches. Then they’ll have to say goodbye all over again—and it’s highly doubtful either is carrying a breath mint.
In all seriousness, though, it’s a sweet story, especially if you like that fake strawberry flavor.
As McDonald’s rebranding efforts in the US focus on lovin’ over hatin’ and a sexy new Hamburglar, Leo Burnett London took a near-opposite approach with its latest campaign promoting the client.
“Cow,” a new minute-long spot that launched in the UK last week, focuses instead on the ingredients in an apparent attempt to reach consumers concerned about the purity of their food…or to clarify rumors that may or may not have been shared by the local hairdresser.
We certainly get what the client is trying to do here. Its like a less specific version of the “What are our fries made of?” campaign that launched in the US earlier this year with the help of Grant Imahara of Mythbusters fame.
That one got more than six million YouTube views, though it wasn’t quite as popular as 2014’s infamous “pink slime” instructional video.
Still, we can’t help but wonder whether consumers’ main concerns regarding the Golden Arches concern the quality of beef used in its products…and whether this clip will satiate their hunger for THE TRUTH.
TV Credits
Project name The Cow
Client Steve Hill, Head of Marketing, Brand and Experience, McDonald’s
Creative agency Leo Burnett
Executive Creative Director Justin Tindall
Creative Directors Richard Robinson and Graham Lakeland
Copywriter/Art Director Adam Tucker
Planner (creative agency) Sarah Sandford, Josh Bullmore
Media agency OMD
Planner (media agency) Kat Howcroft
Production Company Sonny London
Director Guy Manwaring
Editor Mark Edinoff Work editorial
Post-production company MPC
Audio post-production company Sam Robson at 750MPH
Exposure National television; VOD
If you’re underwhelmed by the new Hamburglar’s antics so far—and are pining for the original criminal himself—you’re in luck, thanks to a spec campaign from production company Whiskey Tongue.
The #OGHamburglar campaign (OG being slang, of course, for original gangster) will feature a series of short films, one of which was just released—showing Ronald McDonald and Grimace picking up OGHamburglar just as he’s getting out of jail.
That’s about it so far, but the first spot is quite nice—gritty and disturbing in a Heath-Ledger-Joker sort of way. Fans can use the hashtag #OGHamburglar to help decide where the series goes next. (And please, no plots with nagging wives.)
“The #OGHamburglar is back in action (straight outta prison) brought to you by a team of rogue creatives who want to bring the beloved character back to life outside of lockdown,” the filmmakers say.
Adds creative director Brett Landry: “We love the Hamburglar and hope that McDonald’s will enjoy our interpretation of the original character.”
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