McDonald's Worldwide
a brand with 98% awareness ... losing share to many
"other McDonald's"
The inventor of the world's fast food industry was losing share
to increasingly sophisticated
QSR sector competitors.
People were trading up to growing 'fast casual' options. The old methods weren't working anymore.
Yet few in the company understood why...
the trans4mation
The key to re-energizing this "family" brand was refocusing leadership on its prime prospects. And new market realities:
"Family” now rarely ate together. The critical ‘average-check’ measure was the cost of a Happy Meal plus a coffee. Mom was now the gatekeeper and more were taking their kids to "the other McDonald's" for perceived better quality, less sugary drinks ... plus a salad for herself.
The key to taking back business was RE-identifying three core target segments ... the same across developed markets around the world. The visionary new CEO needed a fresh way to motivate the four major international agency networks to rebuild this all-too-famous brand.
With my agency roots, a new kind of strategy brief was created to focus & inspire creative teams, around the world, to RE-ENERGIZE...
the result?
A contest among the four major communication networks produced the company's first global advertising campaign in its 50 year history.
It's still running today ~ in its 19th year .
Few know the original idea came from Germany ... as "Ich Liebe Es" ... and it was translated into over 100 languages around the world. [Easy slang everywhere ~ except in French speaking countries where we encountered a not-minor challenge of what any translation meant ~
literally!
]
But even in 2003, advertising was not the only opportunity.
REPACKAGING A BRAND ... GLOBALLY
Packaging is McDonald's second largest spend, right after the cost of food . Many visits to many restaurants around the world (27 countries across 7 years) yielded the same, interesting observation, beyond the actual task at hand:
Packaging sat at each table ~ and there was a lot of it ~ largely ignored.
Being post-purchase, packaging wasn't going to convince people to buy a Big Mac.
It struck that packaging could do something else: deliver a new message ~ and a different way to think about the brand ~ the company ~ and all of its offerings.
Everywhere...
'Brand Empress'
This is one of my favorite client-anointed titles. It was bestowed by the lead trademark lawyer at McDonald's. She was the first to welcome me upon the company creating a new position to bring my strategic skillset in-house. (And if you know anything about the all-too-often non-meeting of minds between "legal" and "marketing", you'll know why that was flattering!)
Beyond being a terrific welcome, it recognized what it actually took to maintain brand standards in every creative center, around the world, and channel best intentions in 128 very independent countries. That included advertising, but also was complicated by bringing packaging into the communications fold.
Prior to that new campaign, I'm proud to have my own portfolio of favorite commercials, which I helped bring to life through both strategy and 'client sell-in' as my responsibility as head of McDonald's international markets, working from the agency side.
I hope you enjoy these as much as I still do (despite some quality challenges!)
...
results
The most notable result for McDonald's -- beyond strengthening market leadership with many consecutive quarters of growth -- was refocusing the brand in the minds of their newly defined audiences. And for as long as top management maintained that coordinated focus, the internal audience was far more effective in producing great results, while building the brand ... vs 'discounting' it.
