The Challenge
Each of these 6 campaigns launched a McDonald’s menu item or menu line. Of these, 2 were new menu lines, Seafood, which followed a trend in the market, and Taste of Thai, which gave the menu a local flavour. The other 4 were launches by McDonald’s Thailand, for Larb McShaker Fries, McFried Chicken, the McSharing Box II and McSpicy Korean Wings.
Each launch aimed to make people aware of the new menu and to bring them to buy it, in the restaurants and online.
Each campaign also had a problem of its own. The Larb McShaker Fries pack looked like the original apart from the powder sachet. McFried Chicken and McSpicy Korean Wings had to stand out in a fried chicken market where established and new competing brands had grown. The McSharing Box II had to match the conversion results of the first McSharing Box with a story that felt new, while supporting the McDonald’s brand refresh.
Our Approach
Seafood
Primal ran the Seafood launch in 3 phases, a teaser first, then demand generation, then consideration and action. The creative was split into always-on promotion and creative made for the campaign, to raise awareness and consideration and to drive conversions on the McDonald’s app and website.
Taste of Thai
Taste of Thai ran in 2 phases, demand generation, then consideration and action. It kept the same split between always-on promotion and campaign creative, again aimed at awareness, consideration and conversions on the app and the brand website.
McFried Chicken
McFried Chicken had one message to put on screen, crispy skin outside and juicy meat inside, and food is harder than most products to show well. The main video carried the message through sound, pairing close-up shots with real audio of the chicken.
After the main video came 3 more pieces. An artwork on the crunchy texture invited people to taste the chicken freshly cooked at their nearest restaurant. A social media piece about the sound of a bite aimed to get people talking. A 6-second retargeting ad on Facebook and Instagram set out the promotion and closed with a clear call to action.
Larb McShaker Fries
Larb McShaker Fries brought McShaker Fries back in a Thai flavour, in a pack that looked like the original apart from the powder sachet. The main video showed the way to shake, then a customer’s reaction to the strong Larb flavour at the first bite, for people aged 18 to their late 30s.
Primal produced the key visual, with Thai chillies bursting, lemons squeezed and fries shaken against yellow and red stripes, under the tagline “Extreme taste, Explosive Larb”. Retargeting assets for several digital platforms then reused the product shots and the shaking scene, the scenes that held attention most in the earlier phases, in a format for each audience segment.
McSharing Box II
For the McSharing Box II, Primal came up with #TeamMcSharingBox, an event on Facebook and Instagram that asked fans to choose a team by their favourite chicken, Chicsticks or McWings. Social listening on the 2 teams led to the next idea, each team inviting the other to try its favourite.
The second phase showed the 2 teams in a McDonald’s restaurant, each playfully sure its meal was the better one, until the first bite of the other side’s chicken surprised them. The campaign closed by bringing both teams together around one message, that McChicken can be shared whichever team you are on, and asked people to share their McSharing Box experience.
McSpicy Korean Wings
McSpicy Korean Wings ran in 3 phases, interest before the launch, storytelling content to promote the wings, then remarketing to people who had already seen them before the campaign ended. Before the launch, Primal produced content for Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
A social video showed the wings made fresh to order with McDonald’s own Korean sauce. The rest of the content focused on 3 selling points, the authentic Korean flavour, the secret Korean sauce and the Korean taste in every bite, so that people would learn what made the wings different and try them.
Outcomes Achieved
The Seafood launch achieved 19.96x return on ad spend (ROAS) against the previous campaign, with a 323% increase in impressions, a 355% increase in web purchases and a 929% increase in ad recall lift.
Taste of Thai achieved 14.17x ROAS against the previous campaign. Web purchases increased 40%, cost per order fell 42% and ROAS improved 80%. Both launches are measured against a campaign of the same scope and product that ran before McDonald’s worked with Primal.
In 1 month, the McFried Chicken relaunch made 34.9M+ impressions and 6.4M+ engagements, and McDonald’s Thailand achieved 100% of its purchase target.
In 2 months, Larb McShaker Fries made 23.1M+ impressions and 222K+ engagements across social channels, and met 100% of the purchase target. In the first week of the campaign there were 651 orders a day.
In 1 month, the McSharing Box II campaign reached an audience of 6M+ on Facebook and Instagram, made 7.3M+ impressions and met 100% of the purchase target. It also reached 109% of the in-store purchase target, and engagement increased 3x, to 390K.
In 1 month, McSpicy Korean Wings reached an audience of 21M+ on Facebook and Instagram, made 29M+ impressions and drew 4.2M+ views on the main promotional video. The campaign’s purchase objectives were met within 2 weeks of launch.
- 19.96xROAS Against the Previous Campaign, Seafood
- 651Orders a Day in Week 1, Larb McShaker Fries
- 109%Of the In-Store Purchase Target, McSharing Box II
- 100%Of the Purchase Target, McFried Chicken and McSharing Box II
Key Insights
- All 6 launches had one aim, awareness of the new menu that led to purchases in the restaurants and online.
- Where a product was hard to show or looked like the original, the campaign gave people one thing to remember, the sound of a crispy bite or the way to shake.
- What the audience did in one phase decided the next, from the scenes the Larb McShaker Fries retargeting assets reused to the idea that came from social listening on the 2 McSharing Box teams.
- McFried Chicken and the McSharing Box II each met 100% of the purchase target in 1 month.
