Our audiences were able to enjoy an immersive Hello Kitty experience in both online and real worlds. They could add the Hello Kitty Bot as a buddy on Messenger, chat with her, earn rewards from her in the form of unique branded emoticons, have fun with her through playing Hello Kitty games on the McDonald’s website, and even meet up with her by redeeming an exclusive an exclusive emoticon-style Hello Kitty doll in McDonald’s!Messenger textlinks were used to drive traffic to the Hello Kitty Bot. In addition banners across the MSN network directed users to the McDonald’s website for playing Hello Kitty games and from there, they were prompted to make friends with Hello Kitty back in MSN. At the same time, point of sale materials also alerted customers to Hello Kitty on Messenger, the games section on McDonald’s website and of course the exclusive Hello Kitty dolls available.

Our target jumped at the chance to talk to their cartoon icon for the first time. Hello Kitty made 75,000 new friends! She was asked more than 70 million unique questions by her new buddies! The McDonald’s website experienced a surge in traffic as over 1.7 million Hello Kitty games were played. Search engines reported a jump in searches for “McDonald’s” and “Hello Kitty” and forums were filled with fans discussing how to collect the exclusive emoticons. Moreover the campaign success translated into revenue as in-store traffic increased 7% YoY during the campaign and sales increased 11% YoY