2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

This work transported the followers of McDonald’s into a whole new brand experience, one of fashion and fame. For the first time ever in Saudi, a restaurant became a trending fashion topic, making headlines locally and internationally.

Background

When you’re McDonald’s, you expect other restaurants to “draw inspiration” from your brand and products. In fact, it’s happened over a million times and by now we know exactly how to deal with it. But when Fashion icon Alexander Wang “draws inspiration” from your paper bag to launch his new handbag, that’s definitely a first. Our objective was to take Alexander Wang’s followers to experience the authenticity of the McDonald’s brand.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

We called Wang out and we served it as fast as we serve our food. On the same day, our paper bag was posted on the McDonald’s Saudi Arabia Instagram page, in the exact same style as Wang’s post. And of course, we tagged him in front of all his followers and ours, with a statement that says it all: @Alexaderwang, we did it first. Among his followers, were the fashion bloggers of the kingdom and the world, and we wanted to get their attention too.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

We knew fashion enthusiast were used to the art direction of fashion posts so to take them on an experience of the McDonald’s brand we needed to get their attention first by making our paper bag and its post look like the posts they follow and like. Our target audience were: 1. our followers 2. Alexander Wang’s followers (So people that are interested in McDonald’s but also people that are interested in fashion) 3. Alexander Wang himself 4. The fashion bloggers and influencers Our approach was a very simple one. We simply put things back into perspective for our 4 main target audiences by simply placing our bag in the same perspective as Wang’s.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Our strategy was based on how quick our retaliation was and how fast our response was. It took us just a day to spot Wang’s bag, come up with our campaign, create our post, and post it. And the way we art directed the post was to get the attention of the fashion community. One simple and small parody post then had the power to cross industries and categories from F&B to Fashion. It took on an international scale. We spent 2,827 dollars and gained back 1.73 million dollars of earned media… that’s 61,000% return on investment. The 2,827 dollars were spent on boosting the post but the organic shares received from there outbid by far the boosting budget.

List the results (30% of vote)

The come back of our paper bag made an impression 1. Our post turned into a trend, picked up by fashion influencers and outlets. 2. McDonald’s was making fashion headlines and was among the top things trending in pop culture as a fashion icon. 3. The conversation around the bag was massive with social media engagement like never before on our channels. 4. Alexander Wang got inspired some more and went on to collaborate with McDonald’s to launch a whole collection called I’m Wangin’ it! You can read all about it on GQ https://www.gq.ru/style/sumka-awang#intcid=recommendations_default-similar2_09f712be-4ee5-43a8-9f6e-e2676536c01a_similar2-3_entityTopicSimilarity And here are the numbers: • 1.73 million dollars of earned media • 349 + million impressions • 10% increase in McDonald’s KSA followers