Situation:

As a step in reducing single use items in the restaurants, McDonald’s Sweden decided to remove their iconic balloons once and for all.

Brief:

But kids love balloons, so how do we communicate this as something positive and fun?

Objectives:

Make people feel that it is positive that McDonald's stops handing out balloons.

We replaced the balloons with an engaging and fun AR balloon experience, accessible thru the McDonald’s app.

The main target audience was families with kids in the Happy Meal age. The AR game was built using 8th Wall's WebAR platform and designed for kids (2-7 yrs). It revolves around popping as many balloons as possible within a given time frame. We launched “The next generation of balloons” with a 360° campaign completely centered around the mobile AR experience.

We launched the campaign in the second week of September 2020. Nationwide OOH, DOOH, print, TVC/OLV, audio, influencer activations and McDonald's own channels (SoMe, restaurant screens, kiosks, app, website) all promoted the AR experience. The campaign ran for four weeks and was McDonald's Swedens biggest campaign of the year.

+170 000 unique players the first three weeks.

+450 000 games started

+3 min average gaming time

0% balloon littering

9 tons of reduced plastics per year (balloon sticks)

+200 000 000 earned media reach

7/10 think that it is good or great that McDonald's has stopped handing out balloons (Ipsos).

Sales increased by +0,5%* compared to the same period 2019 and +7% compared to the same period 2018.

*Even though many restaurants close earlier due to Covid 19.