Results and Effectiveness

The results were unprecedented – both for game engagement and the resulting shift in consumer perceptions. - 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 But did this help change views of McDonald’s? Yes! Brand tracking from the quarter’s communications, in which the game was a key tactic, saw unprecedented improvements - +8% in consumer perceptions of freshness - +6% in the use of quality ingredients - +10% uplift in “food I feel good about eating”

Creative Execution

We created McDonald’s first ever social game in the Australian market; The Big Mac® Farm Challenge. In a fresh, lush, farm landscape, users were challenged to find hidden ingredients in a countdown against the clock. As the user found each ingredient, a success notification delivered a real food fact. Once complete, the user would see their complete burger driven from the farm towards a city skyline – conveying the paddock to plate message. To recruit switchers, in an Australian media first, we incentivised Farmville players to earn Farmcash by completing the game via a call to action ad served within Farmville. Users could redeem their Farmcash once they had completed the game and clicked through to the Facebook page. Secondly, to engage and educate existing fans, we drove competition and rivalry within the community. Users could check out where they stood on the leaderboard, challenge their friends and share scores.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Sawdust in your burger? Pig fat in your shakes? These were exactly the type of myths that McDonald’s wanted to confront. 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. We identified two key audiences to target. 1. Engaging and arming our loyal McDonald’s Facebook community to advocate Macca’s 2. Recruit and dispel 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 ingredients between farm and restaurant that consumers held common misconceptions about. We needed to confront this and identify a single solution that targeted this dual audience. Social gaming is a huge online activity for our target – with over 2.5m Australians playing online, we had the perfect platform to bring this strategy to life.