Live from PROMO Live: McDonald’s Casting Call Touts Success
It’s been four months since McDonald’s ended its global call to feature everyday people on its packaging, and the campaign is growing legs.
McDonald’s is gearing up to launch new packaging featuring 25 people from all over the world on its cups and bags. The effort is designed to promote the brand’s forever young ‘i’m lovin’ it’ campaign. And the fruits of the company’s labor—a two-year planning and execution effort—is expected to roll out in phases across the globe in February or March, Amy Murray, director of adult marketing, McDonald’s, said during a session at PROMO Live yesterday.
Casting call stars will be rotated on McDonald’s packaging through 2008. Details of the U.S. roll out were not available. McDonald’s will re-evaluate its packaging strategy after a year, Murray said. “The question is, what will the packaging look like for 2008,” she said. “We’re still in the evaluating stage.”
McDonald’s whittled down the more than 13,000 entries it received from its spring casting call to 25 “stars” and sent consumers on an all expensed paid trip to London in August for a photo shoot. The marketing stunt, which was two years in the making, garnered more than 13,000 entries during the eight-week promotion (PROMO September 2006).
More than 100 McDonald’s markets participated in the campaign; some 615 submissions came from McDonald’s employees themselves. The QSR reported more than 13 million visits to the microsite and 1.2 million page views.
The effort was more about billing the American brand as a global company. “We knew this wasn’t going to be a sales builder,” Murray said. “This was a brand builder. We really felt we connected with people.”
The Marketing Store, Chicago, and The Boxer Agency, Birmingham, England, handled.
Though the campaign has official ended, McDonald’s officials are considering new plans to leverage its new stars. McDonald’s restaurants in Brazil are considering a concept to launch special packaging for the seeing-impaired and blind by putting Braille on its bags. In addition, those restaurants want to use one of the 25 stars, Roseli Goncalves, of Brazil, as a spokesperson for the new packaging. Roseli teaches deaf children how to speak through Brazillan sign language. The concept is still being discussed by McDonald’s, Murray said.
The casting call gained such attention that McDonald’s has the potential to extend the campaign to other demographics, Lawrence Scott Neumann, senior VP and executive creative director for The Marketing Store, told attendees. For instance, McDonald’s could run a similar campaign targeting moms and older adults or target McDonald’s employees, he said.
“We’re going to push every button we can,” Neumann said.
