McDonald’s had previously partnered with game developer Zynga to capitalise on users' social behaviour and affinity for gaming, being the first marketer to integrate a branded farm into the popular social game FarmVille. Building on this success, McDonald’s moved from the farm to the big city, and became the first branded restaurant in online social game CityVille.

The virtual restaurant was a replica of an actual real-world store, bringing the new McDonald’s directly to the consumer. As players built their virtual cities, they could integrate McDonald’s restaurants and branded items, allowing our message to come to life first-hand!

Cityville also naturally allowed users to become our advocates and publicists. If they added a McDonald’s to their city, they could post it to Facebook and 'like' the brand, driving additional visibility and brand engagement beyond the game.

This campaign drove strong user engagement and provided a platform to showcase the modern McDonald’s experience.Over 80 million served! Players visited the branded McDonald’s restaurants more than 2 million times per day.Over 1.7 million McDonald’s were placed in CityVille in the US, which is more than actual restaurants across the globe! 35% of users who added McDonald’s to their city chose to share it on Facebook. Given that Facebook users have an average of 120 friends, this equates to over 71 million “free” impressions (Source: Facebook)