2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for PR?

The 25th anniversary of McDonald's Kuwait was a prime opportunity to cement McDonald’s position as an ingrained component of Kuwait’s own pop culture identity. Over the course of two and a half decades, McDonald’s has grown to arguably become the most popular quick service restaurant in Kuwait. This anniversary celebration was not for the McDonald’s global brand, but specifically a celebration of McDonald’s Kuwait. Since McDonald’s Kuwait has never just been about the food, but has always been about creating feel good moments, great memories and an overall magical experience. We wanted to celebrate 25 years of feel good memories.

Background

2019 happened to be the 25th anniversary of McDonald’s opening its first store in Kuwait. So, McDonald’s was looking to mark the occasion with a strong, moving and memorable video that would celebrate the essence of McDonald’s and 25 years of great memories. They wanted a strong corporate viral video that would resonate with the public and remind them of exactly what they love about McDonald’s. The McDonald’s business objective was to increase the positive perception and affiliation with the McDonald’s brand, and the marcomms goal was to utilize the anniversary as a prime opportunity to cement McDonald’s position as an ingrained component of Kuwait’s own pop culture identity.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Since the opening proved to be the starting point for many people’s love affair with McDonald’s, it made sense to recreate it and bring people’s nostalgia to a euphoric peak to celebrate 25 years of feel good moments. We took McDonald’s back to 1994. Literally. During our research, we also found out that there was no public video archive of the opening. So, it made sense that we would reproduce it. We wanted to create something so genuine, that viewers would be hard-pressed to believe it was not real. We wanted them to think we’d uncovered some long-lost footage of the opening. If we were to celebrate 25 years of great memories, we wanted to go right back to the beginning.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

When we began, we were armed with the client’s key message “25 years of feel-good moments and great memories”, so we set about to find out just what these memories and feel-good moments were. Through a series of focus groups and surveys, we wanted to get some insight into people’s emotional connections to McDonald’s and the memories and moments that brought them that warm fuzzy feeling. One thing that kept coming up, especially with millennials and generation Xers, was the opening. We kept hearing about how monumental the opening was, how epic and even how transformative it was for Kuwait, marking a major shift in the cultural landscape post-invasion. We kept hearing about the 7-mile long line that stretched from beginning to end of the Gulf Roa, the 15,000 customers who filled the drive-thru and the news crews covering the event like a national milestone.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

We used the pictures we had of the opening and recreated everything from scratch. We took over the McDonald’s flagship store, the site of the opening and its most beloved store, and turned back the clock. Every item was meticulously recrecreated: store decorations, packaging, staff uniforms, era-appropriate hair-styles and fashion, the vintage Ronald McDonald uniform, 1994-era cars, and so on. We recreated the scenes we saw in the pictures, with McDonald’s Kuwait and US reps giving speeches, cutting the cake and taking photos with the crew. Over 18+ hours of shooting, we diligently reproduced the opening on film. The final video was pushed out on social and digital platforms, with a heavily-concentrated, high-frequency digital media campaign. It was also aired on TV and in cinemas throughout the month of Ramadan. We even took our social media accounts back to 1994 (8-bit graphics, 90s sitcom themed posts, retro video games).

List the results (30% of vote)

The video became one of the buzziest of the saturated Ramadan season, and an instantly beloved classic. The video on McDonald’s Kuwait’s Instagram page garnered more than 400,000 views, the highest viewed post to date. Total views from the social media campaign topped 1.15 million, including 455,751 on YouTube. The video also had a recorded reach of 315,127 via Whatsapp. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, as the video made it onto several “Top Ramadan Ads” lists by month-end. The client’s KPI at the beginning was to increase the brand and ad awareness for McDonald’s, as determined by their quarterly brand metrics, by 1 point. We ended up increasing awareness by 2. Also, a sample of 350 people were surveyed post-campaign, and 69% of them believed the film to be genuine recorded footage. More importantly 58% of them identified McDonald’s as their QSR and 64% said they perceived McDonald’s more positively after the video. Further proof we were able to pull off a genuine-looking video? Three long-serving McDonald’s directors, including two retired, who were at the opening - genuinely thought the video was real.

Please tell us how you designed / adapted your campaign for the single country / region / market where it aired.

One thing that kept coming up during our research, especially with millennials and generation Xers, was the actual opening day of McDonald’s. We kept hearing about how monumental the opening was, how epic and even how transformative it was for Kuwait, marking a major shift in the cultural landscape post-invasion. We kept hearing about the 7-mile long line that stretched from beginning to end of the Gulf Road and the 15,000 customers who filled the drive-thru, and news crews covering the event like it was the opening of a national monument. We’d uncovered the ultimate cherished memory of McDonald’s Kuwait, and we set about to build a campaign around it. The opening was so iconic and beloved that it set the tone for McDonald's entire journey in Kuwait. We made sure to keep the authentic feel of the era, using components of the Kuwaiti popular culture at the time.