The Campaign

McDonald’s worldwide needed to connect better with millennials. They 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. It needs to continually and effectively connect with consumers though because of the dominance of local competitor Jollibee. Without an emotional bond with Filipinos, McDonald’s can lose by default to the homegrown brand, just on national pride. An activation was designed to provide little gifts of joy – not ads -- on-ground that would catch people’s attention and spark positive brand conversations. To make joy highly palpable, in the Philippines we focused on a daily source of unhappiness: traffic. The agony is magnified at the tollways where motorists still need to pay for toll. On 24 March 2015, tollbooths in Manila’s major expressways were transformed to mimic McDonald’s drive-thru booths. Then during rush hour, the McTollbooths waived toll fees and gave out bags of free McDonald’s breakfast to motorists. The bags also contained free McDonald’s premium coffee coupons redeemable via drive-thru or in-store. Celebrities helped man McTollbooth. News and social coverage amplified 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. 24 hours later, a McTollbooth recap video was posted online to spike more conversations. More press, broadcast and online media coverage followed, including global.

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 are 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.

Results

Considering that the investment for the McTollbooth activation was at 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.

Execution

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 roast coffee that they could redeem via drive-thru or in-store. Celebrities helped man the booths. 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. Generally, everything went according to plan.

The Situation

Millennials form a big part of McDonald’s core market. Through the years, they have become cynical about a lot of things, big brands included. They have short attention spans and their source of information and entertainment are multiple screens. In the Philippines, millennials exhibit similar qualities. While they have no prevalent negative sentiments against McDonald’s Philippines, they are exposed to their global peer’s sentiments through media. Continuous strengthening of the emotional bond with the Filipino consumer is also necessary because McDonald’s Philippines main competition is homegrown brand Jollibee, which flaunts national pride.

The Strategy

McDonald’s was launching imlovinit24 globally to bring “24 acts of joy to 24 cities over 24 hours,” connecting with the millennial consumer. By giving them 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. We amplified the McTollbooth experience on media to reach even more consumers.