Cannes Contenders: VMLY&R Sydney
How will Australia perform at Cannes this year? In the lead up to the Festival, Campaign Brief will be showcasing the work we hope will impress the judges…
McDonalds: McPickle
VMLY&R
McDonald’s Australia found itself in a bit of pickle. Our competitors were getting people talking by adding crazy ingredients to their burgers – one replaced seeded buns with fried chicken!
We didn’t want to follow suit. After all, why move away from a signature taste hundreds of millions of people love? Our famous burgers are made from famous ingredients, so we decided to launch a brand-new burger with a single organic post on social – the McPickle. The only thing was…this burger didn’t exist. It was an April Fool’s joke, and one that quickly spread all over the world. But this didn’t stop people from hacking the McPickle, challenging each other to eat one and reviewing its pickle-tastic taste.
The results were truly astonishing. The McPickle received 96% positive sentiment, over 500 million impressions globally, and collected more than $12 million in earned media. All without spending a cent on media. So, it just goes to show: you don’t need to change your brand to get people talking, you just need to give people what they already love. The McPickle. A single post that got the world talking about McDonald’s.