• Situation

Monopoly at McDonald’s is one of the biggest and most eagerly anticipated prize promotions in the UK. Come March an excited buzz around the game’s return reverberates online. When the annual peeling frenzy begins customers clamour for their chance to win anything from a McFlurry to a Mini. The problem; whilst McDonald’s have a legion of superfans playing regularly, they weren’t attracting enough new players to sustain the promotion.

• Brief

We needed to grow the promotion by bringing new players into store to play. Our task was to convince people that Monopoly at McDonald’s is a game that should not be missed.

• Objectives

Attract new and infrequent customers into restaurants to play, measured by

? Increased guest count during the promotional period

? Increased average cheque during the promotional period

? Increased sales during the promotional period

To convince people that Monopoly shouldn’t be missed we tapped into an innate human truth; we are a herd species and hate missing out on what others are doing. With our legion of superfans playing regularly we had a ready-made set of influencers ready to be mobilised. But, they needed a way to show that not only were they playing, they were loving it. So, with a simple, slightly odd, and very silly finger wiggle, Peely Peely was born.

It took flight with our influencers, but soon spread beyond, and very soon we’d given everybody a language to show they were playing Monopoly at McDonald’s. Wiggling fingers were popping up everywhere, from social feeds to workplace kitchens with anyone not in on Peely Peely, wondering what they were missing out on.

Customers data supplied by CREST and McDonald’s Business Intelligence showed our biggest opportunity came from the 16-24s demographic. They had the highest number of infrequent visitors all open to playing Monopoly.

We used qualitative research to understand Generation Z; a paradoxical group worried for their futures, but desperate to enjoy early adulthood. The groups they form are critical to their identity and validation comes from company they keep. With Peely Peely we attempted to forge fun for the here and now with an easily shared social idea.

The finger wiggle was designed with social media in mind. Repeatable and silly, we knew it would spread like wildfire.

When people see a behaviour is popular its approval tends to increase. By mobilising our superfans with their own irreverent call sign, we infected everyone who didn’t want to miss out

We started off using influencers and super-fans to launch a cascade of wiggling fingers. A toolkit of GIFs and videos got social firing and soon customers were catching on. To add more fuel, we used broadcast to support the ongoing wiggle-fest.

3 weeks prior to launch superfans and influencers flooded social with GIFs and stickers. Broadcast channels then fired Peely Peely into nationwide consciousness three days before Monopoly officially began. By the end of the campaign Peely Peely had turned into a celebratory call up and down the country.

We spread Peely Peely across newsfeeds and stories on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, also setting up a bespoke Giphy channel. Emails shared toolkits with superfans and we ensured Influencers were engaged, sharing & creating content.

Broadcast media support meant Peely Peely caught on nationwide, starting in social media it soon caught on in restaurants up and down the country.

• Reach

Total number of impressions stands at 239.8 million.

• Engagement

People have embraced Peely Peely online and we’ve seen over 10.9k engagements with Peely Peely on social, on top of which our bespoke Peely Peely GIFs have achieved over 9.5 million views and one of them has proved to be so popular that it features in the top 20 most popular gym GIFs globally.

• Sales

We’ve seen our superfans and new fans flock to play in record numbers and during the campaign window McDonald’s recorded their second highest sales week ever.

• Achievement against business targets

March ended as a record Guest Count month for McDonald’s and during certain weeks of the promotion they achieved the top 4 guest count weeks ever.