After Day 1 of the campaign 155 website and blog owners had applied for the banner in order to be included in the campaign, i.e. providing banner space for the price of free traffic generated from paid media. The banners in rotation on partner websites generated 24,047 clicks from Coin hunters in their hunt for virtual Coins. Coin hunters collected more than 30,708 virtual Coins on Day 1, which equals 3,070 Cheeseburgers, 2,047 midsize beverages or 1,228 McBacon burgers. Not bad considering the size of the country – population 5.5m.

(The campaign launched 4 April 2013 and is still running, which means final results are not yet available).

The insights from earlier campaigns showed an impressive willingness from the target audience to play an active part in the distribution of virtual Coins. McDonald’s wanted to take advantage of the high involvement from the target audience and equip them with the tools to join in. The media team converted the creative idea from being a hunt for Coins on different paid media to include free media space from blog and website owners in the target audience. On a specially developed landing page, website and blog owners could sign up for a ‘Coins for Clicks’ banner and afterwards embed it on their website. McDonald’s then placed a seed banner on large paid media sites and when Coin hunters clicked from this banner in the hunt for Coins they would arrive on the audience’s websites and blogs. The target audience enjoyed free visits to their blogs and sites and in return McDonald’s got free media space.

To engage a younger target audience and drive awareness towards McDonald’s Everyday Affordable Products (Coinoffers), we launched a virtual currency called Coins. Coins were collected by scanning QR codes in banners from inside the McDonald’s Coinoffers smartphone application.

Earlier campaigns showed that the younger target audience wanted to be involved in the distribution of virtual Coins. In order to encourage more of the target audience to join and increase engagement from loyal users we developed the concept ‘Coins for Clicks’.

To kick off the campaign, McDonald’s started the chain reaction from a paid banner on one of the most viewed sites in the country. Users then scanned and clicked their way through sites, providing the sites with extra traffic. Website owners were encouraged to join the platform and to embed a banner in order to be part of the campaign and enjoy free visits. Every Coin had the value of DKK 1.00 and could be exchanged for Coinoffers at McDonald’s.