For the first time ever, the front page of a major daily newspaper in the region came in a different language. This not only created buzz amongst the industry, but also became the talk of the town in various conversations. Day after recall among newspaper readers showed that 77% recalled the execution, with 82% recognizing it as a McDonald’s ad. 54% said they intended to try the product after seeing the ad.(Source: CATI dipstick in collaboration with Khaleej Times) In terms of sales, 3 of the "Tastes of the World" burgers sold out in 2 weeks of their launch.
Creative Execution
We employed strong multimedia campaign with a massive presence all across town to ensure that we enticed the TG in the most popular of touchpoints. But we knew it wasn’t enough and therefore we set out to do something extraordinary in a media that has the highest power to create immediacy and announcement. Print media remains one of the key category-drivers and delivers the highest audience exposures. We took the entire country by surprise which literally made front page news. Front page news on one of the most popular dailies came in a different language! Starting with the Asian Chicken, the entire front page of Khaleej Times was transformed from English to Chinese (Mandarin) for the day. Every subsequent sandwich launch was transformed into the language of the particular region it represented. This was followed by the eye opener that revealed the sandwich and the reason for the language transformation.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea
McDonald’s UAE launched the new “Tastes of the World” platform, with four new burgers from around the world. Each burger was available in store for 3 weeks only.The products were launched one after the other. McDonald's historically has been relying on existing menu products (Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, etc) while competitors have been launching a lot of new products. With the Tastes of the World, McDonald's was finally launching somthing that was new and out of the ordinary. Our objective was to build excitement and hype around McDonalds “Tastes of the World”, since it was the most anticipated new offering for a long time. These new sandwiches were on offer for a limited period therefore we had to ensure that each burger met sales targets within the 3 weeks it was available.