Building Community Connections
McDonald's has partnered with SHIFT to drive local brand affinity and forge community connections since 2012.
MILLIONS
of engagements served
LOCAL
brand love
Client
McDonalds
Industry
Consumer
Insights
McDonald’s needed to immerse itself locally and position itself as a community-oriented business to connect with audiences meaningfully.
Idea
Feel-good brand and product campaigns, plus reputation management, across the New England, Empire State and Chicago regions.
Cooking Up Brand Love
Through authentic storytelling across traditional and social media, events, activations, partnerships, crisis support and more, SHIFT supports McDonald's local brand, promoting product launches, positioning the company as a choice employer and engaging with each restaurant’s local community.
Here are some of our favorite campaigns that continue to generate engagement across the region.
Winning Over "Bills Mafia"
To beat growing competition and economic headwinds, we embarked on an oversized vision of a sports partnership: make McDonald's part of the Buffalo Bills fandom. As part of an integrated agency team, we unleashed a full-season lineup of Bills-inspired menu and offer strategy, content, digital engagement and cross-channel promotion that netted a 16.9% lift in new app customers, 24% lift in frozen beverage sales and outpaced sales targets by 179%.
"Crew Member for a Day"
When McDonald’s faced a labor shortage during a critical time, we created new ways to showcase its work culture, boosting applications 34% YOY.
The Big Mac ATM
SHIFT launched a "McATM" to create buzz for new menu items, distributing free samples at a Boston restaurant and integrating paid, owned, social and earned media, driving a steady stream of customers wrapped around the block, billions of impressions and thousands of social media engagements.
Happy Meal's 40th Anniversary
To evoke nostalgia and create sharable moments, we sent media and influencers limited-edition mailers with Happy Meal toys from the past. WIth media relations, too, our 1.6M impressions and thousands of social engagements drove sales.
IMPACT
Through our countless campaigns and community activations, including giving back, we've helped boost McDonald's local reputation and drive ongoing brand loyalty.
