Chicken wasn’t the usual breakfast fare for most Americans, but McDonald’s sought to change that using a combination of online and offline word-of-mouth to build buzz about their newest menu item.
It started by asking the eternal question, “what came first, the chicken or egg?” and then letting consumers answer it through a light-hearted debate including a user-generated dance Web site “WhatCameFirst.com” (En espagnol at Quienfueprimero.com), buzz-generating Man on the Street interviews, and street team dancing in New York.
Tactical Campaign Elements
Free Product Sampling Day:
To give the buzz a big boost, McDonald’s created a national sampling event where consumers could try a free Southern Style Chicken with purchase of a medium drink on May 15.
Viral Web Site
Consumer customizable Web experience allowing folks to upload their photo to either a chicken or egg and challenge a friend to a “Dance-Off” by selecting a series of dance moves, resulting in a customized animated dance sequence. Consumers could forward the final Dance-Off animation to friends and family via email, encouraging them to go online and participate in the debate and create their own customizable Dance-Off challenges.
Blog Outreach
A multi-pronged engagement strategy was executed to reach various types of bloggers.
Man-on-the-Street Interviews
Consumers across the country were video taped to answer the question of “What came first?” The funniest responses were featured on WhatCameFirst.com.
Street Dance Teams
Dance teams were deployed in New York City performing modern and hip-hop interpretations of the chicken dance with t-shirts and gift cards to drive traffic to WhatCameFirst.com
RESULTS
The overall campaign generated nearly 1,000 blog postings and more than 10,500 online discussions through blogs, videos, discussion forums and Twitter. Most significantly, "McDonald's free chicken sandwich was the 13th most Googled search term on the May 15th sampling day.
Client: McDonald's
Agency: GolinHarris
Budget:
Date of Campaign: April-June 2008
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