Introduction:
My client is the renowned fast-food giant McDonald’s, the name of my project/ creative concept is The Free Big Mac Campaign. For my project I had created three pieces of work, each is a social media post designed with specifications to their given social media app. All three creative concepts are similar but have a few different design elements to fit their given platform: Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
Strategy & Concept:
There are two main ideas behind my creative concept, one being giving back to the loyal McDonald’s customers, two being the Big Mac, McDonald’s hero. The Big Ma c has been a staple for McDonald’s for over 50 years. Originally created in 1967 by franchisee Jim Delligatti of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Delligatti proposed that in order to rival another local fast-food restaurant, Eat'n Park, which featured a "Big Boy" sandwich, McDonald's must provide a bigger burger "catered to adults." The name was chosen after plenty of contemplation. The Aristocrat as well as the Blue Ribbon Burger were two additional possibilities that were discarded. In 1967, Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old secretary in the company's advertising department, came up with the winning name: "Big Mac." Executives and other staff at the time scoffed at the moniker. However, it persisted and became "one of the most well-known product names of all time." (McDowell, 2020). My project as stated in the introduction is called The Free Big Mac Campaign. McDonald’s would be giving away a free Big Mac with every order over 200 Egyptian Pounds. This campaign is meant to give back to all loyal McDonald’s customers and provide them with a “gift” of a free Big Mac, the most popular food item in the McDonald’s menu. The social media mockups will be pushed out on multiple social media platforms for existing and future customers to view and share. My focus for this project was product, the Big Mac. Loved by many all over the world. According to the brief provided McDonald’s mission statement is “To make delicious feel-good moments easy for everyone” and I believe this project would support their mission statement by providing their most popular food item free of charge for order under the given criteria. The Big Mac was an innovative creation during it’s time and still perseveres to this day, one of the first mainstream burgers to add the slice of bread in the middle to stop components from falling out. From the Big Mac’s official launch to the current day, it has been a soft spot for millions around the globe. Some of McDonald’s biggest competitors are KFC, Burger King and Wendy’s. Burger King had launched a similar campaign recently, “With every purchase of $1 or more, any member of Burger King's Royal Perks program can get a free Whopper Jr. With your order, you'll be able to collect the reward via the chain's mobile app, site, or at any participating restaurant nationwide” (Mench, 2022). Burger King’s offer suggest that customers MUST be a member of their Royal Perks Program, McDonald’s offer only has one criterion and it’s ordering any food item over 200, the offer will be added to your order simultaneously when meeting the given criteria. My objective for this project and for each piece of content is coinciding with McDonald’s goals for this campaign. I believe each piece of content will trigger customers to go to their nearest McDonald’s and take advantage of this offer. It will also increase online engagement as these pieces of content will be posted on three social media platforms and will allow users to share and interact with the post. According to the brief, McDonald’s aims to shift it’s focus to customers from ages 18 to 25, teenagers to young adults. This is the current target market for McDonald’s instead of its previous target market which was aimed at children and the parents of children, therefore, my target audience is men and women ages 18 to 25, living in populated rural and urban areas. I believe the content created will boost on-foot traffic to stores across the country as well as boosting online engagement by the end of June by at least 30%.
Design:
All three pieces of content have the same selection of words applied but each have slightly different design elements to fit their given platform. Approx. 8 words without the slogan “I’m Lovin’ it”. The main focus is on the “Limited Time Offer” placed in the right-hand corner of both the Facebook and Instagram posts and at the top of the Snapchat post to meet the viewers eyes first as they will read the post from right to left. It adds a sense of urgency for the customer that will move the customer from the awareness stage to the interest stage according to the AIDA model. The Big Mac is an iconic burger at McDonald’s so no need for introductions, I placed an image of the burger with the “FREE” circle next to it, implying that the offer features a free Big Mac, this would intrigue the customer more and therefore move on to the next stage in the AIDA model, desire. The design elements used in my pieces of content differ slightly for piece to piece but overall have the same structure. I stayed true to McDonald’s brand guidelines and color palettes, using the same exact colors used by the brand, making the pieces similar but not identical to their average posts. The phrase “I’m Lovin’ It” was added under the logo in every piece, McDonald’s creative framework stated that the catchphrase must be used in all ads to convey what the customer is feeling. “I’m lovin’ it does’t just refer to the burger in the ad or the promotion…it refers to the idea in the ad too. If people’s response to the ad itself is not ‘I’m Lovin’ it’ then we have failed.” The main color scheme is yellow and white according to McDonald’s Egypt but I added elements of the McDonald’s iconic red and black to spice up the piece for Egyptian customers as they are accustomed to mainly the white and yellow. Each piece of content was designed taking SEO in account, when googling ‘McDonald’s offers’ there are approx. 340 searches per month according to Ubersuggest. The low number of searches make SEO easier as there are no competitors using the same keywords.
Theory:
Each piece of content relates to the AIDA model, using a call for action as the first thing the viewer sees adds urgency to the posts and adds the initial interest in this offer. The Big Mac image was placed in the center to intrigue the customer’s desire for the product. The customer would then think of how to get this offer, and reads the last line in the piece. The customer would then take action and either interact with the post and share it and/or will go to their nearest McDonald’s to take advantage of the offer.
Bibliography
McDowell, E. (2020, March 26). The Big Mac was named by a 21-year-old McDonald's secretary, and everyone laughed at it at the time. Retrieved from INSIDER: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-mcdonalds-big-mac-got-its-name
Mench, C. (2022, June 1). Burger King's Offering Free Whopper Jr. Burgers Today for Its 68th Birthday. Retrieved from Thrillist: https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/burger-king-free-whopper-jr-birthday-deal
