Tribal DDB Shanghai cheers on students with McMuffin campaign

ASIA-PACIFIC – SHANGHAI, CHINA, JUNE 2011 – Tribal DDB Shanghai recently launched a digital campaign in China aiming to drive full scores with McDonald’s McMuffin breakfast. Rolled out online and via social media and mobile, the campaign aimed to make the product emotionally relevant to young consumers.

Based on the insight that everyone wants a dose of good luck to make them feel more confident when facing challenges such as China’s highly competitive National College Entrance Exams (Gaokao), McDonald’s decided to anchor on high school grade 3 students. The idea was to play on the double meaning of McMuffin or ‘mai man fen’, which in Chinese sounds like “full score” – ‘măn fÄ“n’, and to equate it with good luck and well-wishes to achieve a “full score” on the Gaokao.

Running on the McMuffin minisite (www.maimanfen100.com), mobile site and social networking site QQ, the campaign emphasized that McMuffin supports and empowers students in their quest for “full scores”. It invited students and well-wishers to air their resolutions to achieve high scores and pledge their encouragement for test-takers. The campaign minisite also featured a special music video by well-known Chinese singer Zheng Yike that cheered for students to attain a “full score.”

On June 7, the day of the Gaokao, McDonald’s gave grade 3 students a final big boost of luck and confidence by giving out free McMuffins to any exam-bound student who showed their student’s I.D. at any McDonald’s store in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The campaign generated massive buzz and created a wave of people wishing for a ‘full score’ by having a McMuffin.

“By creatively linking the idea of ‘full scores’ with McMuffin, we showed that this was really a product that cared about the achievements of its young consumers. The campaign is a fantastic example of what we call ‘social creativity’ – it gained momentum by giving consumers a concept they wanted to play with, participate in and pass along,” said Jit Hoong Ng, Managing Director of Tribal DDB Shanghai.

“McDonald’s McMuffin is a relatively new product to the Chinese market and this is a campaign aimed at both building awareness and personality for our breakfast offerings in China. The results have been outstanding: in just three weeks, over a million people in China have given their best wishes to grade 3 students and business has been healthy,” said Christine Xu, VP Marketing, McDonald’s China.