McDonald's Fry Challenge

click to enlarge

No one does convenience like the fast food industry. Anything a fast food company does to engage with customers therefore is always worth considering. McDonald's already had a presence in the social media world, but in order to improve its visibility in digital media and its number of Facebook fans, a campaign was created surrounding the Big Mac meal.

McDonald's chose the main target group to be young adults, between the ages of 15 and 24. The campaign was targeted to groups of friends instead of individual consumers as it would generate more sales and customers. Facebook was chosen as the main media channel for several reasons: young adults are very active in social media, Facebook's word-of-mouth effect is suitable for viral messages and the campaign could be targeted effectively. The campaign just needed an attraction that would lead consumers from the internet to restaurants.

Interactive game on Facebook
An interactive game on Facebook was created, with the idea of gathering groups of friends to McDonald's restaurants. French Fries don't typically have a big role in McDonald's communication and it wanted to make them a star of the meal at least once.

The interactive game was the 'Draw French Fries' challenge on Facebook, where the aim was not to pull the smallest fry. McDonald's Facebook fans challenged three friends as well as McDonald's to competition. Each person had to pull a French fry from the box with The one who pulled the shortest French fry had to buy the whole group a Big Mac meal. McDonald's was also automatically in the competition so when the French Fries were pulled by those involved in the game, McDonald's also pulled a fry. If McDonald's lost the competition it would buy the winner a Big Mac Meal.

Results
The total media budget was €2640. Within 10 days campaign period the total sales went up by +6.4% and GCs +6.0%. 71 324 played the game and the number of fans increased by 23 200.

The campaign received the best Facebook campaign results ever in McDonald's Facebook history. The campaign received almost 11 000 clicks and the fan page received almost 10 000 new fans via market place ads.

The campaign was also very cost efficient (the average CPC€ 0,24).