2016 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

The last few years witnessed a rise in people’s interest in consuming balanced meals. This affected McDonald’s and most of the QSR brands. This fact was accelerated by the the growth of social media that offered consumers forums of sharing their point of views. McDonald’s, therefore, as part of their plans of keeping up with the consumer trend of having balanced meals, decided to revamp their existing salads by introducing 3 new premium salads. Our challenge hence became to not only create awareness about the 3 new salads that McDonald’s introduced but also to make people believe that these Salads are actually offered by McDonald’s and are made of premium quality ingredients.

Results and Effectiveness

Activation results •460 people passed by the salad nation between 11:30am –3pm •67% change in perception towards McDonald’s balanced meal offerings •People were genuinely surprised that the salads were from McDonald’s as most visitors thought this was a new premium salad bar. Business Results • Salads’ sales increased in UAE, Qatar and Bahrain by 45%, 53% & 21% respectively Media results - We reached around 3 Million users on FB with a CPE 70% less than the average McDonald’s CPE - The YouTube Masthead enabled us to serve around 45M impressions and generate 1 Million video views in one day.

Creative Execution

We created an on-ground activation where we installed a fake salad outlet in the Dubai Financial District offering the new salads range for employees during their lunch breaks. The outlet was not linked to McDonald’s. We called it “Salads Nation” and branded it with a fresh identity. People who came in for a salad and upon finishing it they were surprised to see the McDonald’s logo hiding at under the last few ingredients at the bottom of the salad bowl. The overall experience was captured, put together and edited into a engaging piece of content which was seeded on Social media and on YouTube.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

People believe what they see, especially our main target audience, young mothers. This target audience more than any other is very skeptical and not easily convinced. Our secondary target is lifestyle and health savvy people in searching for a quick, healthy meals option during lunch breaks. They are equally hard to convince and please. We knew that if we told them that McDonald’s were offering premium Salads, they wouldn’t believe us nor trust the quality and the taste. We wanted people to judge the taste and the quality of the ingredients of McDonald’s new premium Salads without their misconception or opinion about the brand affecting their judgement.