The Big Mac hadn’t seen significant marketing support for several years as it was a solid performer. Whilst it was well-known amongst an older audience, the younger generation was being drawn to the newer, promotional McDonald’s burgers. This was all down to the fact that these guys need instant gratification in an always-on, constantly changing world. They have short attention spans and are constantly searching out the new and exciting.

The Big Mac is part of McDonald’s brand heritage. It’s intrinsically linked to the brand, so we needed to put it back into the spotlight with a birthday to remember, making it a viable choice for a younger generation.

Personalisation and sharability would be key for resonance and cut-through.

We developed a truly celebratory communications approach, deploying tactics to deliver undeniable impact and standout across all formats, bringing an added layer of iconicity to everything we did.

In AV we ran a heavier weight campaign and longer second lengths, to launch the campaign with immediate impact. This was coupled with a heavy-weight out-of-home campaign which saw our standard 6-sheet campaign bolstered by a range of special builds; and bespoke formats in print; to really bring to life the different size burgers. The centrepiece of our campaign was turning the London’s Imax into a giant Big Mac – the capital was in no doubt this was a big celebration!

We also developed SnapChat filters, which could be unlocked via a SnapChat found on Big Mac packaging, to bring the campaign to life right in the restaurant – making it customisable and infinitely shareable, to spread the word.

The proof was in the pudding – or in this case, burger. Our launch was so successful, the country sold out of Big Macs!

Demand was so high on the opening weekend that all Big Macs sold out and some restaurants even had to shut down due to demand. Sales targets were smashed – with Grand Big Mac performing 128% over projection across six weeks.

And the love was really showing – hundreds of comments were generated on social media and we doubled the share rate benchmark for the SnapChat filters.

February IPSOS results show the Big Mac campaign drove 21% increase in the statement ‘Makes me feel good about the brand’ and 24% for ‘Increased my interest in visiting the outlet’ – after only two weeks of activity!