The Campaign

McDonald’s is famous for its classics like the Big Mac and the Quarter Pounder. So when launching the new “Lamb Burger” in 2012 which promised ‘real tastes with real ingredients’, McDonald’s required a media strategy that generated awareness and excitement at a scale that only McDonald’s could achieve. Our challenge was to establish our “serious burger” credentials with an audience of attention-starved, entertainment savvy young “loyalists” and “switchers”. The insight was that young Australians love interacting with and actively contribute to the outcome of reality TV formats, which included voting elements and social interactions. So we decided to connect with our young audience via a sponsorship integration of the No. 1 rating reality TV talent show ‘The X Factor’. With the playful introduction of the new Lamb Burger through entertaining and compelling content, we were able to establish the serious burger credits and got the audience excited!

Success of the Campaign

The Lamb Burger’s sponsorship of the X-Factor exceeded the value of McDonald’s investment four times over and generated a huge $5.9m worth of media value for the brand as Johnny Ruffo’s song ‘Gettin’ Serious’ aired to an audience of 1.4 million as the first advertisement in commercial airtime. A full length version of the song had achieved; • 227,000+ views • 800+ comments • 1,000+ shares • 18 press articles published across Australia and New Zealand. The ‘Get Serious’ online hub received; • 10,862 entries to the competition • 98,649 website views • 55,514 video streams on the behind-the-scenes content series 74% of X-Factor viewers had ‘purchased McDonald’s in the last 12-weeks! Paul Pontello, Marketing Senior Brand and Strategy Manager, McDonald’s summed it up, saying ‘This was a fantastic idea that was bang-on for the X Factor fans – they loved it!’ There is no doubt that this campaign was a ‘serious’ success!

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

We worked with 2011 X-Factor runner-up, Johnny Ruffo, to create a tongue-in-cheek, parody-style music video about his ‘serious’ love for the new Lamb and Angus burgers to be featured on the ‘X-Factor’. TV, online, and social media were used over the five-week period. We kicked off the campaign with an in-program call-to-action informing the audience that Johnny Ruffo was ‘getting serious’ by writing a new love song. The in-show integration followed Johnny’s journey of writing, recording, and shooting. The online hub encouraged fans to share and vote for their favourite lyrics and provided behind-the-scenes content of Johnny pulling together the choreography, recruiting current X-Factor contestants, and finding the leading lady. Finally we revealed that Johnny’s serious love was not about the leading lady, but for the new burger range. The music video featured all the RnB cliché’s with lyrics showcasing the new burgers and a less serious side of McDonald’s.