Immortal Awards 2023 - McDonald's “UNBRANDED MENU”

Describe the brief from the client 

The relationship between food and gamers has never been stronger. McDonald’s attempts to infiltrate the gaming space have been limited to standard buys –– sponsorship of eSports tournaments. Given the growth trajectory for this audience, McDonald’s could do better.

Where do we even begin? Which game do we start with? What’s massive enough for a brand like McDonald’s (that other global brands haven’t already tapped)? And as important as the WHERE was the HOW –– how do we engage an audience notorious for rejecting marketing efforts? In a way that won’t blow our budget.

Describe the strategy 

Two things we observed: (1) gamers love screengrabbing and sharing the cool things they find in their games, (2) there are a lot of McDonald’s food-alikes in hundreds of video games hiding in plain sight –– from pseudo Big Macs, to faux McD’s Fries, and knock-off McNuggets. So McDonald’s decided to stake its claim on these unbranded food-alikes by challenging gamers to search across the video game multiverse to find them all. 

To get the word out to an always hungry gaming community, we teamed up with the Philippines’ top gaming influencers to start a game within these games. All gamers had to do was to find McDonald’s food-alikes, take a screengrab, and post it online with the hashtag #ThisIsMcDonalds. And in return, they get free McDonald’s food delivered to them for free! 

Describe results and achievements 

While other brands were negotiating to be integrated into billion-dollar titles,McDonald’s did not need to pay any gaming publisher or invest in any tech or development), Nor was McDonald’s limited to just one video game.. 

McDonald’s food-alikes were found in over 350 video game titles! McDonald’s Fries were seen in Goat Simulator, a Quarter Pounder was found in Final Fantasy, a McDonald’s Sundae was spotted in The Last of Us, a Big Mac was caught in Grand Theft Auto, just to name a few. In a single move, McDonald’s asserted its iconicity and ubiquity and got gamers to think of McDonald’s every time they see fast food inside ANY video game.

All in all, the campaign impacted two-thirds of the Philippines’ gamers (27 million). It also increased McDelivery sales by 35% as gamers and their friends and families ordered even more McD food, on top of their freebies,  on the McDelivery app.