Since two years back, McDonald’s Sweden’s creative platform is “Big enough to make a difference” which has a big focus on the positive butterfly effect that comes when a big brand starts making moves in the right direction. For this brief, the brand wanted to highlight

sustainability work that is done locally by its franchisees and see what initiatives could be scaled up. In this case, we found out about a franchisee in southern Sweden who had started to use her restaurant rooftops to house beehives. The objective of the campaign was to

create attention around the initiative in a way that people would engage with, share and spread the word. And inspire more franchisees to join the cause.

To honor the initiative and spread the word, we designed and produced a fully functioning beehive in the shape of a tiny McDonald’s restaurant with room for over 20 000 guests. The bees enter the hive through the main entrance and the restaurant also has a McDrive and seating outdoors.

1/3 of the food we eat is dependent on bees. So it’s only natural for McDonald’s to engage in protecting the bee population. McDonald’s Sweden’s creative platform is “Big enough to make a difference”. The brand wanted to highlight sustainability work that is

done locally by its franchisees and see what initiatives could be scaled up. In this case, we found out about a franchisee in southern Sweden who had started to use her restaurant rooftops to house beehives. The key message of the campaign was “Small sustainability

Initiatives can make a big impact”. The target audience was the general public of Sweden, but we aimed for fame abroad as well. We hired one of Sweden’s best set designers to build the McHive and produced a film of the making of it.

We started seeding our McHive film on McDonald’s social media channels and to relevant sites and news outlets on World Bee Day May 20. The scale of the restaurant is tiny, but the initiative has grown with more franchisees in Sweden looking to put beehives on rooftops next

spring. The McHive itself was auctioned off for 10 000 USD during a fund raiser for Ronald McDonald House and is now in the possessionof a franchisee in Stockholm.

Tier 1: The story got world wide publicity in news outlets such as Fox News, Metro, Independent, The Standard. Lifestyle magazines such as High Snobiety, Hypebeast, People, Buzzfeed and TV shows in US, Russia & Asia. 98% published the video & press photos and covered McDonald´s main message that McDonald´s is working with sustainability and is big enough to make a difference. But most important the story of that honey bees need help was lift across the world. In total the story received 6 billions impressions in 80 countries.