The Campaign

What is the right kind of burger- one with the cheese above or the one below? Well, McDonald’s restaurants do it both ways, depending on the construct of the burger. And each burger tastes as delicious as the other. Perhaps, because they have one thing in common. They’re all from McDonald’s. That’s how we decided to end the debate. No matter where the cheese, a burger will always be delicious- as long as it’s from McDonald’s. We told this to the world in a matter of hours, with a simple digital video.

Execution

The world wide web was buzzing with the burger emoji debate at the time but as they say, the internet’s memory can put a goldfish to shame. We knew that we had to move quick. We conceptualised, executed and released the video in a matter of hours. It was initially released across our social media channels- on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, but this campaign gained immense momentum when it was picked up by key marketing blogs and fan pages. All of this was entirely organic- not a single dollar was spent. The overwhelmingly positive response to the video made it clear that we had re-established ourselves as the one true burger restaurant, in all of one day. And only through a single video that went viral.

Our video generated a massive conversation about the brand amongst mainstream media, marketing blogs and fans. Our campaign generated a tremendous PR value, without spending a single dollar on PR. The video received 87 million earned media impressions within a span of a week! There was a 505% increase in conversations generated for McDonald's India . We generated a whopping 386% more conversations that quarter as compared to our top 2 competitors, combined. The campaign helped rekindle brand love and resulted in an increase in footfalls at our stores, with customers asking for cheese in a way they preferred. Here are some significant business outcomes from the campaign: - 14 million burger sales in the next two months. - 3 million unit increase in burger sales

The Situation

This video created conversations across the board- from leading advertising blogs to marketing websites to news networks. The reach of the video wasn’t limited to online conversations and mentions , it translated into a remarkable spike in burger sales across McDonald’s restaurants, with people coming in to try burgers with different placements of cheese. And how much did we spend on all of this? $0.00

The Strategy

Our strategy was to not take sides in this debate, since McDonald’s itself places their cheese differently on different burgers, and even so, every burger tastes as delicious as the other. Since it was a debate that started on the internet, we thought it best to resolve it on the same medium- with a simple video that spoke the truth to people who had, in recent times, started visiting other newly-opened restaurants for burgers. It was the right time to remind them who knew burgers best, and we decided to do that 100% organically. The initial propulsion came from friends and family who truly loved the brand but from there, it went everywhere. Our buzz-worthy creative became our only PR strategy.