Brief Explanation

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 into McTollbooths that waived toll fees and gave out free breakfast.

The Brief

McDonald’s worldwide needed to connect better with millennials. The brand needed to evolve with today’s consumers who are sometimes jaded with or critical of big brands. They typically work across screens to consume information and entertainment. Locally, McDonald’s Philippines still engenders positive sentiments from consumers. It needs to continually and effectively connect with them though in the face of the dominance of Jollibee, a local fastfood chain. Without an emotional bond with Filipinos, McDonald’s can lose by default to main competitor Jollibee, a homegrown brand, just on the aspect of national pride.

How the final design was conceived

Recent studies have shown that the Philippines has the 9th worst traffic in the world. We wanted to find a way to bring happiness to motorists toiling in the infamous Manila rush hour. Our solution was to create the first-ever McDonald’s Drive-Thru in the middle of an expressway. We took signature design elements that characterized the McDonald’s Drive-Thru experience – the golden arch pylon, the red booth, the cheerful attendant you talk to on speaker — and implemented it on Manila’s two major expressways. In the midst of dull, gray booths, the McTollbooth was eye-catching and grabbed the attention of weary commuters. But to make the experience truly memorable, we had to take it even further. We sought every opportunity to make the process of paying your toll as cheerful as possible, like placing motivational messages on the toll gates or hijacking the toll board and replacing the prices with smileys as we asked them to pay absolutely nothing for toll.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

Considering that the total investment for the McTollbooth activation was only USD 154,000, the ROI was clearly remarkable. On-ground reaction was 100% positive with motorists grateful for the waived toll fees and free breakfast. Motorists and non-motorists alike spontaneously and massively shared the McTollbooth experience online: - 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 Analyzing the online comments, McTollbooth elicited 99% positive sentiments for McDonald’s with a lot of comments specific on Philippine operations. Among all the global imlovinit24 acts, McTollbooth was also the most viewed. Conversation share of voice (SOV) for McDonald’s Philippines grew by 119% during the campaign period while competitors Jollibee and KFC had negative growth of -41% and -50%, respectively.