The Brief

Challenge: Chinese people love chicken. 70% of set meals sold at McDonald’s in China are chicken burger combos. We needed to ignite China’s love affair with the McDonald’s Beef Burger. Objective: Our main objective was to make Chinese men want our Beef burgers, and to big up our ‘100% beef’ quality credentials. Insight: Men in China were loosing touch with their manly side. They have become clean cut, coiffured and manicured, shadows of their former selves. Many men want to get back to a simpler time where they could act as nature intended and not feel ashamed.

Creative Execution

MEN wanted to feel PROUD to be so. We gave them the campaign that allowed them to do that. Beef is manly. It's a big bite product, filling and uncompromising like a manly man.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Desired outcome: To create above 50% category uplift in sales at McDonald's. Solution: “100% Real Beef for 100% Manly Man” We studied the characteristics of men from different areas around China, and developed one national thematic TVC and four tailor-made TVCs that paid tribute to local manliness in a light-hearted way. We also created the ‘100 Ways to be a Manly Man’ outdoor campaign to tutor on how to be a man. We amplified our idea by creating the ‘Valentine Big Mac Box’ and collaborated with an online shopping site to market these as the manly gifts for your man.

Results

Men ate more beef burgers. Beef category sales increased by 87% during the campaign. The ‘100% superior beef’ quality message also resonated more with our manly consumers compared to 2011. Recognition was up 25% in Shanghai, up 30% in Guangzhou,12% higher than the norm in Beijing. Overall sales of all beef combo sets vs.2011 increased by a whopping 28.4%, and sales of the extra value meal increased by 8.6%. During the campaign period, 40% of consumers visited McDonald’s more frequently and spent 10% more in the restaurant, 25.6 million online impressions and a total of 559,000 topic threads were generated.