TL;DR (A 3-SENTENCE SUMMARY)

During the strategic development of our McChicken breakfast campaign, we infiltrated a FB group dedicated to McChicken enthusiasts. We brought McDonald’s several ideas to activate within this group but kept getting turned down. Well, we went ahead and made something anyway... and McDonald’s approved it. 

Strategy

Research

During my research for the campaign creative brief, I was doing social listening and kept seeing the phrase “for me, it is the McChicken” over and over. I did some deeper digging and found that it stemmed from a Facebook group dedicated to McChicken enthusiasts called, “For me, it is the mcchicken. The best fast food sandwich.” Once I shared this information with the team, we each answered the entry questions and waited anxiously for news of our acceptance. 

Entry Questions:

For you, is it the McChicken? The best fast food sandwich? 
I’m nosy as heck, where did you find this tag group?
Will you buy me a McChicken? There’s no penalty for saying no, I’m just hungry. 

At the time, September 2019, the group had 34,000 members. (As of December 2020, it has 56,000.) This group is incredibly single-minded. All they do is share McChicken content like memes, their orders, and at-home McChicken creations. They’ve also popularized chaotic combinations like the “land, air, and sea” – a hamburger patty, a McChicken patty, and a Filet-O-Fish patty. They’ve developed their own pet names for the McChicken like McChonkin, McChuggin, McChimpkins, and more.

Approach

These people love the McChicken. And the McChicken patty is what makes the new, chicken breakfast sandwiches at McDonald’s unique and ownable. After all, chicken biscuits for breakfast aren’t new, but a McChicken breakfast offering was. 

We felt deeply compelled to tap into the passion for McChicken to stir excitement around the fact that people could now get a McChicken for breakfast. Over the course of the campaign development, we brought several ideas to the table to no avail. Our clients laughed along with us, but approvals didn’t come. 

As we were entering production, the new McChicken breakfast sandwiches started to roll-out across the country, and we started to see posts about them trickle into the FB group. A new phrase was emerging: “For me, it is the McChicken biscuit, the best fast food breakfast sandwich.” 

By January 2020, the group had grown to 41,000 strong. Our desire to do something for this group only grew alongside them. We so wanted to reward their passion and acknowledge them, to give them a reason to double down on their McChicken love and shout about McChicken for breakfast from the rooftops. 

We had one last chance to get approval on an activation idea before we had to lock and ship the campaign. 

Creative

Our creative team chased this idea until the very end. When we went into the VO recording for the rest of the campaign, the team used the last few minutes to have our talent, Craig Robinson, record a special VO just for the group… you know, just in case. 

Then, we created a low-cost, internet-y, fandom-forward video using existing assets, stock imagery, and stock audio. After we created it, we showed it to our client. She laughed out loud, hard, and approved it. 

I was given the honor of working with the group administrator to have him post the video. Per contract-y, licensing, terms & condition things, we were only able to share the video for 2 weeks, but the excitement from the video was well worth it. 

We didn’t know what we would see or learn when we first infiltrated this fan group, but the McChicken passion is abounding. Their obsession with the McChicken inspired our obsession for giving the group some love. After all, history shows that brands win when they reward product obsession and fandom.

TEAM

Jeremy Davis - Strategy Director
Hannah Barr - Junior Strategist
Ben Tolbert - Creative Director
Chris Juhas - Creative Director
Lulu Wimberly - Copywriter
Kailey Riggen - Art Director
Carla Weaver - Brand Lead
Aubrey Larson - Account Supervisor
Kevin Castro - Assistant Account Executive