We decided to go back to the brand’s roots to give to Happy Meal its edge back: it should become a pure moment of happiness for the kids and the parents again. What if the fun was no longer the gift in the box but the box itself? Make the Happy Meal box the source of Happiness. We therefore decided to leave the communication world to enter the entertainment one by treating the Happy Meal box – a strong symbol of the brand – as an entertainment property that we can license to ourselves. Sponge Bob and Bart Simpson among others were sources of inspiration to turn the Happy Meal box into an animated character – HAPPY MEAL. His main goal is to bring happiness by turning everything into fun. On top of that, this iconic character is a good reason for loving the brand for itself and not only for the toy.

In order to bring the happiness strategy to life we started by creating moments of happiness with our TVCs. We introduced HAPPY and its goal to the audience with some situational comedy scenarios and a video clip without referring to Happy Meal offer - it is not about food advertising but about funny jokes. Then, in order to promote Happy Meal Programs we made HAPPY interacts with famous license characters – from the toys. Even there, we continue to entertain both kids and parents with funny jokes featuring HAPPY and famous characters such as Scratch from Ice Age.

At the same time, Digital helped us engaging more with our audience by offering a new online experience. A specific website had been developed where kids could discover more about HAPPY and play with him via an alternate reality game. HAPPY also entertains kids and parents in McDonald’s restaurant with posters.

We have reasons for being enthusiastic about HAPPY MEAL character as first results in terms of image are very good in several big markets.

In France six months after the launch 91% of questioned kids already know HAPPY MEAL and 96% like him (including 86% of them who like him very much!). Regarding parents results are also very good as 73% of them know HAPPY and 86% like him (Ipsos Public Affairs). In Germany both kids and parents have already ranked him 2nd favourite character, just after Sponge Bob and 81% of kids can recall generic TVC (McDonald’s kids track research).

In Spain Happy Meal awareness by Kids is 63% and its likeability by kids is 93% - (P.A.C Research & Education). In Italie its awareness by kids is 55% and its likeability by kids is 90% (Ipsos Marketing research). Without mentioning the1.5 millions views already generated on Youtube…