Since the introduction of its McCafé sub-brand in Hong Kong, McDonald’s has been on a long-term mission to democratize high quality coffee. For many years, McDonald’s provided two tiers of coffee offerings, the base McDonald’s coffee and higher quality McCafé coffee. With dedicated efforts over the years, McCafé coffee is perceived to be on par with major players in the coffee category at a more affordable price point with greater convenience.

In the latest chapter of its coffee-democratization mission to win the market, McDonald’s decided to replace McDonald’s coffee with McCafé coffee across all its stores to further capture the coffee market at no additional cost to the consumer. Before the campaign, McDonald’s share of the Hong Kong coffee market sat at 17%, behind the category leader Starbucks which remained at 25%. With this upgrade, we had the ambition to become number one.

McDonald’s Coffee is Retiring! To grab the attention of the loyal fans of McDonald’s coffee (and other java lovers), we returned to a fundamental human truth, ‘you only realize your love for something when you lose it’.

We shocked our coffee lovers with a sudden public announcement – “McDonald’s Coffee is Retiring!” It will say goodbye today!” This abrupt announcement sparked a massive online conversation, an overwhelming majority of which expressed their love for McDonald’s coffee.

What happened next was a rippling effect: lively, organic conversations discussing what is currently happening. When online conversations peaked, McDonald’s revealed the reason behind it all – upgrade to McCafé coffee across our entire restaurant chain with no additional cost to the consumer!

Although Hong Kong’s coffee marketing is undergoing premiumisation, coffee still fulfils a functional purpose in the daily lives of many – and McDonalds coffee is of no exception. In our focus groups, many customers have expressed fondness (and sentimentality) for McDonald’s coffee, satisfied with its surprisingly great quality at affordable price points. Although McDonald’s coffee is one of the most consumed coffees in Hong Kong, it is also the least talked about on social media.

We wanted to leverage McDonald’s coffee fans who have been silently supporting us to help us amplify our big upgrade announcement. To achieve this, we utilised a fundamental human insight – ‘you only realize your love for something when you lose it’. We wanted to spark a massive public response and cast a spotlight on McDonald’s coffee alongside its large fanbase, culminating in a huge coffee upgrade announcement.

We wanted to shock the loyal fans of McDonald’s coffee silently supporting us with a sudden announcement of McDonald’s coffee retirement, prompting them to stir up a ripple of organic conversations on social media – making our coffee upgrade the talk of the town.

Our campaign began with a single social post – “McDonald’s Coffee is Retiring – It will say goodbye today!”. To give weight to our announcement, we dominated the frontpage of all the free newspapers in Hong Kong, featuring a white McDonald’s coffee cup. We also dominated major touchpoints to reach everyone on their way to work or school, including 3 of Hong Kong’s high-volume Cross-Harbour Tunnels and various outdoor ads placements. On the same day, when online engagement reached its peak, we revealed that the reason for the retirement – a permanent upgrade of the McDonald’s coffee range to McCafé coffee!

The campaign took the city by storm! We generated a total of USD $2.1 million worth of PR value with an overwhelmingly positive tonality.

Mentions of McDonald’s coffee went from near 0 before the campaign to over 90,000 social mentions, propelling McDonald’s social-share-of-voice among major coffee brands from only 2% in the months preceding the campaign to a whopping 40% during the month of the campaign, making it the most discussed coffee brand on social media.

In terms of sales impact, our coffee upgrade increased total coffee sales by 21% (measuring one month after our announcement).

As a result of this campaign, McDonald’s was able to overtake the market share of the leading player in Hong Kong coffee market – and for the first time – ahead of Starbucks.