The Campaign

Television is a major source of entertainment in the Philippines. However, millennials are now becoming online readers and digital viewers. Mobile phone ownership is increasingly rising as they become more affordable. The country is dubbed as the “social networking capital of the world” with Filipinos spending an average of 4 hours/day on social networks. An average of 9 hours/day is spent online across all devices. This is mainly driven by the fact that many Filipinos work overseas and communicate with their families online. Traditional media advertising costs much more than digital. A self-regulatory body screens and approves print, broadcast and online media, most especially on superiority claims. The country is highly Catholic and the Church has been known to publicly denounce entertainment content that it perceives to be against its doctrines. To avoid controversies, advertisers would rather withdraw such materials than engage in a public tug-of-war.

Results

McDonald’s worldwide needed to connect better with millennials. The brand needed to evolve with these consumers who are sometimes jaded with or are critical of big brands. They typically work across screens for information and entertainment. Locally, McDonald’s Philippines still engenders positive sentiments from consumers. It needs to continually and effectively connect with them though because of the dominance of Jollibee, a local fastfood chain. Without an emotional bond with Filipinos, McDonald’s can lose by default to the homegrown brand, just on the aspect of national pride. An activation was designed to provide “moments of joy” on-ground by gifting the target with little gifts of joy – not ads -- that would catch their attention and spark positive conversations about the brand. To make joy highly palpable, in the Philippines we focused on a daily source of unhappiness: rush hour traffic. The agony is magnified at the tollways where consumers endure traffic and still need to pay for toll. In the early hours of 24 March 2015, tollbooths in Manila’s major expressways were transformed to mimic McDonald’s drive-thru booths. Then during the morning rush hour, the McTollbooths waived toll fees and gave out bags of free McDonald’s breakfast to motorists who drove through. To extend the experience, included in the bags too were coupons for free McDonald’s premium coffee redeemable via drive-thru or in-store. Celebrities helped man McTollbooth. News and social coverage amplified the experience via on-the-spot reporting, tweeting and photo/video uploads. Motorists who missed out still won free breakfast by simply uploading their group pictures (groupfies) inside their vehicles to the McDonald’s Philippines Twitter page with the imlovinit24 and McTollbooth hashtags. 24 hours later, a McTollbooth recap video was posted on social media to spike more conversations. More press, broadcast and online media coverage followed, including global.

A day before the event, teasers were posted on McDonald’s social pages. Then on the day itself, McTollbooth news rolled out locally and globally. Celebrities helped man the booths. News and social coverage amplified the experience via live, on-the-spot reporting, tweeting and photo/video uploads. Motorists who missed out still won free breakfast by simply uploading their group pictures (groupfies) inside their vehicles to the McDonald’s Philippines Twitter page with the imlovinit24 and McTollbooth hashtags. 24 hours later, a McTollbooth recap video was posted on social media to spike more conversations. More press, broadcast and online media coverage followed, including global.

ROI for the McTollbooth was remarkable, considering total investment was only USD 154,000. over 7 million views and counting Top 5 in Ad Age Viral Video Chart 33.7 million online impressions over 42.6 million netizens reached nearly USD 1.15 million media value earned on just USD 72,000 media spend 99% positive online sentiments Conversation share of voice (SOV) for McDonald’s Philippines grew by 119% during campaign period.Competitors Jollibee and KFC had negative growth of -41% and -50%, respectively. - Most viewed among all the global imlovinit24 acts

McDonald’s was launching imlovinit24 globally to bring “24 acts of joy to 24 cities over 24 hours, connecting with the millennial consumer. By gifting them with little gifts of joy – not ads -- that would catch their attention and spark positive conversations about the brand. To make joy highly palpable, in the Philippines we focused on a daily source of unhappiness: rush hour traffic. The agony is magnified at the tollways where consumers endure traffic and still need to pay for toll. To cheer up motorists, we transformed tollbooths to look like McDonald’s drive-thru booths. Called McTollbooth, they waived toll fees and gave out free breakfast during the rush hour. An online video of the McTollbooth experience was spread online to reach more of the target.