McDonald’s Worldwide needed to connect better with millennial's. They who are sometimes jaded with or are critical of big brands. They typically work across screens for information and entertainment. Locally, McDonald’s Philippines still engenders positive sentiments. It needs to continually and effectively connect with consumers though because of the dominance of local competitor Jollibee. Without an emotional bond with Filipinos, McDonald’s can lose by default to the homegrown brand, just on national pride. An activation was designed to provide little gifts of joy – not ads -- on-ground that would catch people’s attention and spark positive brand conversations. To make joy highly palpable, in the Philippines we focused on a daily source of unhappiness: traffic. The agony is magnified at the tollways where motorists still need to pay for toll.

On 24 March 2015, tollbooths in Manila’s major expressways were transformed to mimic McDonald’s Drive-Thru booths. Then during rush hour, the McTollbooths waived toll fees and gave out bags of free McDonald’s breakfast to motorists. The bags also contained free McDonald’s premium coffee coupons redeemable via Drive-Thru or in-store. Celebrities helped man McTollbooth. News and social coverage amplified via on-the-spot reporting, tweeting, and photo/video uploads. Motorists who missed out still won free breakfast by simply uploading their group pictures (groupfies) inside their vehicles to the McDonald’s Philippines Twitter page with the #imlovinit24 and #McTollbooth. 24 hours later, a McTollbooth recap video was posted online to spike more conversations. More press, broadcast, and online media coverage followed, including global.

A day before the event, teasers were posted on McDonald’s social pages. Then on the day itself, McTollbooth news rolled out locally and globally. Celebrities helped man the booths. News and social coverage amplified the experience via live, on-the-spot reporting, tweeting, and photo/video uploads. Motorists who missed out still won free breakfast by simply uploading their group pictures (groupfies) inside their vehicles to the McDonald’s Philippines Twitter page with the imlovinit24 and McTollbooth hashtags. 24 hours later, a McTollbooth recap video was posted on social media to spike more conversations. More press, broadcast, and online media coverage followed, including global.

Considering that the total investment for the McTollbooth activation was only USD 154,000, the ROI was clearly remarkable. On-ground reaction was 100% positive with motorists grateful for the waived toll fees and free breakfast. Motorists and non-motorists alike spontaneously and massively shared the McTollbooth experience online:

- almost 7 million views and counting

- Top 5 in Ad Age Viral Video Chart

- 33.7 million online impressions

- over 42.6 million netizens reached

- USD 1,136,180 media value earned on just USD 72,000 media spend

Analyzing the online comments, McTollbooth elicited 99% positive sentiments for McDonald’s with a lot of comments specific on Philippine operations. Among all the global imlovinit24 acts, McTollbooth was also the most viewed. Conversation share of voice (SOV) for McDonald’s Philippines grew by 119% during the campaign period while competitors Jollibee and KFC had negative growth of -41% and -50%, respectively.