2016 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

Consumers are becoming more health conscious and more concerned with the quality of food they eat. Because quality is one of McDonald’s values, the objective behind this campaign was to reassure consumers of the high quality ingredients used to prepare food at McDonald’s. For years, McDonald’s tried to deliver quality facts through tray-mats, but people misused tray-mats as sheet-like-plates and rarely read anything on them. The insight we played on was the love people have for instant prizes. We created an engaging two-way communication channel via the tray-mat, giving it a more interesting fate than where it usually ended up.

Results and Effectiveness

By offering consumers a fun activity, we managed to turn a stagnant medium to an in-store interactive way of getting our message across, revealing a fact about each ingredient once its shape was completed. The campaign was a success, creating an unusual bond between the brand and the consumer. Even though the average redemption rate of any in-store coupon-based promotion McDonald’s carries out is around 10%, this promotion managed to reach double that with a redemption rate of 20%. The consumers got the information they needed to know about McDonald’s quality in an interesting and engaging way.

Creative Execution

Although consumers often ignore the tray-mat, it’s one of the best mediums in-store to get specific messages across. To make the tray-mat more interesting, we created a promotion and turned the tray-mat to an interactive medium. Instead of the typical boring tray-mat, we created one that easily folds into origami shapes. This tray-mat was split into six squares; one contained information about McDonald’s quality while the rest showed origami illustrations of food ingredients of McDonald's, stating quality facts about them. The offer required consumers to complete origami shapes, and in return get free menu items corresponding to the main ingredients.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

McDonald’s target segments include Teens, Young Adults and Families, all of which have a strong relationship with McDonald’s. Among middle/lower SECs, McDonald’s is where they go to treat themselves and hang out with their friends. They are mostly bored from their daily routines and enjoy anything unexpected. The playful nature of this tray-mat gave every consumer that placed an order something to keep themselves entertained with as they ate, a free menu item to redeem in their upcoming visit, and most importantly got them to know important facts about the quality of McDonald’s ingredients.