2014 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

How do we induce trial while making McDonald’s Breakfast the first thing a person thinks of in the morning?

Creative Execution

Every morning begins with two things: An alarm clock and breakfast. And so to create good mornings, all we needed was a good breakfast and good alarm clock. Besides waking up people in the way they wish to be woken up, the Happy Alarm is designed to meet McDonald’s business driven objectives. To promote the wide menu of the McDonald’s Breakfast, the app uses mobile vouchers as a tool to induce trial on the same day and drive more morning traffic daily to the restaurant. It has a Breakfast in bed mode to promote the delivery service. An inbuilt reward point system is also designed for repeated daily usage.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

We took the one thing most people hate about the morning – an alarm clock, and turned it into something they would love: McDonald’s Happy Alarm. Every snooze wakes you with your favorite songs, videos, images or voice. When you do wake up, it drops a voucher on your mobile that can be redeemed for a delicious Breakfast item – an ideal platform to induce trial. You can even set your alarm at night and use the ‘Breakfast in bed’ mode to pre-order your breakfast to be delivered to your door the following morning at your wake up time.

Results

At the time of submitting this entry, the Happy Alarm is still in its early stages and has gone live on the Android store (Google Play) from Feb 18th 2014. The app is a long term, business-building platform designed to enhance McDonald’s position to capture share in the breakfast market. It goes beyond just creating ads and into product development that enriches the marketing mix.