The Campaign

This entry is focused on branded entertainment in social gaming. While branded content in Australia is a growing area across TV and most digital platforms, integration into social gaming still remains in its infancy. Only a handful brands have ventured into the space and the majority of these only from a paid media advertising perspective. Indeed, according to eMarketer analyst Paul Verna, industry standards and benchmarks for the media are yet to be fully established. Examples of engaging, relevant, branded content within gaming are few and far between. Like our domestic free to air TV channels, regulation around the levels of brand integration is largely self-policed, with the networks looking to balance brand involvement with content integrity and audience appeal. Striking this balance is also a key consideration for brand involvement, given the ease and speed at which online users can walk away from content. Networks consider the same rules of governance for display media to apply to social gaming advertising and integration.

Results

Sawdust in your burger? Pig fat in your shakes? These are exactly the type of myths that McDonald’s wanted to confront in their Q2 marketing focus. With 1 in 3 consumers holding the belief that McDonald’s don’t use 100% real beef, chicken and fish, we needed to challenge these misconceptions. The Big Mac® was identified as the hero product to lead this charge. We had two key audiences that we needed to target with this messaging. We wanted to engage and arm our loyal McDonald’s Facebook fans who would encourage real product advocacy of Macca’s, while also recruiting and dispelling myths amongst ‘switchers’; those who will go to McDonald’s, but will also visit other Quick Service Restaurants. Research told us that it was the journey and treatment of the ingredients themselves between farm and restaurant (‘paddock to plate’) that consumers held common misconceptions about. A focus on dispelling these myths was central to our communications solution. Leveraging the prevalence of social gaming, The Big Mac Farm Challenge was the solution. An engaging, contextually relevant and fun creative execution that united the dual audiences that we were targeting and recruiting (see above section). Central to the completion of the game was the task of finding each of the Big Mac® ingredients hidden in the farm. As the user found each ingredient, a success notification delivered a real food fact: “Fresh handpicked Iceberg lettuce – never frozen”. Once complete, the user would see their complete burger driven from the farm towards a city skyline – conveying the paddock to plate message. The user is then taken to the leaderboard, can share their score with friends and post to their wall. All of which drive earned media and further page recruitment from friends of fans.

Social gaming is a huge online activity for Australians – with 2.5m people playing online each month. With this in mind, we created McDonald’s first ever social game in Australia; The Big Mac® Farm Challenge. Housed on the McDonald’s Australia Facebook page, the game attracted two audiences. To recruit players and new fans, in an Australian media first, we incentivised Farmville players to earn Farmcash by completing the game via call to action ads served within the game environment. Secondly, to encourage engagement amongst existing fans and drive earned media, we hyped up rivalry and competition within the community.

The results were unprecedented – both for engagement with the game and also perception shifts around the food quality of McDonald’s. The game saw huge engagement levels: - 1,000,000 real ingredient facts located - 127,000 game plays - Average engagement of 5½ minutes – a record for the ad network - 67% of players returned - 6% shared their scores From the 45,000 game plays within the Farmville and Cityville ad unit, an exceptionally high 81% of players clicked through to engage further with content on the Facebook page. Earned media also went well beyond expectations with 6% of players sharing their scores with friends via wall posts reaching an estimated 213,000+ Facebook users. The game was even well received by ‘crew’ (Macca’s employees), with McDonald’s requesting the game to be permanently installed on their internal employee intranet. But did this help in shifting consumer views of McDonald’s? Yes! Brand tracking from the quarter’s communications, in which The Big Mac® Farm Challenge was a key tactic, saw unprecedented improvements in freshness and quality credentials. - +8% in consumer perceptions of freshness - +6% in the use of quality ingredients - +10% uplift in “food I feel good about eating”