How do you increase the impact of a tactical campaign and simultaneously use it to build brand engagement and favorability - while reducing the media investment?

This is the story about how McDonald’s Denmark created high engagement with a critical teenage audience in a low-involvement category. Not only building brand affinity with its future customers, but also taking a courageous leap away from the traditional “push” marketing of the past with a pure price focus – instead building a new mobile-led platform for driving traffic to restaurants at a significantly lower cost than previously.

In 2011 McDonald’s introduced a new virtual currency – so called digital ”Coins” – and made it available across media platforms in the form of uniquely designed McDonald’s QR codes and sound codes. Consumers could scan the “Coins” via a special McDonald’s Smartphone App and exchange them for free food at McDonald’s.

Within weeks the Coinoffers App became the fastest downloaded App in Denmark. Ever! It went to No. 1 in both iTunes App Store and Android Market within just 3 days. In total, the App was downloaded 226,360 times – equaling 4% of the entire Danish population. The campaign delivered 2 million Facebook impressions in just three weeks.

The “Coin Hunting” took off: While the campaign managed to make the Danish ad-skeptic YouTube generation wait in front of the TV for the next McDonald’s commercial in their hunt for “Coins” it exceeded the key strategic marketing objectives and drove up brand favourability by 67% among Teens. It also met the critical business objectives as the cost per Guest Count dropped by 17%, while the campaign delivered add-on sales well above the target of 10 Danish Kroners for every 10 virtual “Coins” redeemed in the restaurants.

Even more remarkable: Reducing the media investments by more than 50% from Burst 1 to Burst 2, the campaign continued to deliver results at roughly the same level. As Danish Teens got hooked on “Coin Hunting” none of McDonald’s main competitors were able to strike back – they continued their same old generic discounting tactics.

Although the short-term ROI was not a specific objective for this campaign it delivered a solid Incremental Revenue Attributable to Marketing of 8,885,077 Danish Kroners and a ROMI of 1,47, while contributing to a 2% Guest Count growth during the Snacking day-part (14pm-17pm) at McDonald’s.