McDonald’s biggest product launch in the world, last year, brought to Brazil a new version of its most iconic sandwich: the Big Mac Bacon. With this innovation, there also came one of the biggest controversies of this era: should the Big Mac Bacon be considered a Big Mac or not?

The question, that emerged in other campaigns around the world, arrived in the country with a clear objective: to generate conversation around the subject, attracting the attention of the public, and to increase sales of this new sandwich.

While other countries were focusing all their attention on promoting an endless discussion around the Big Mac Bacon, we decided to end this controversy in the most epic and the fairest way possible. For the world’s biggest controversy, we created the world’s biggest coin toss.

On the 18th of January a helicopter took flight straight off from the USS Lexington war aircraft carrier from the US Navy. It carried a coin measuring over 3 meters in diameter and weighing 400 kilos. On one side it said “It’s a Big Mac”; on the other it read “It’s not a Big Mac”. It hovered for approximately 10 minutes over the ocean until it reached the desert of Corpus Christi/TEXAS. In that location, over 300 meters from the ground, the coin dropped, putting an end to the discussions and solving the issue in the most attention-grabbing way ever.

The whole activation was was

The strategy prioritized McDonald’s key target audiences: young millennials that are active on social media.

The approach was to use an engaging tone of voice that combined the epic feeling of the activation with a humorous touch that is typical of McDonald’s communication in Brazil.

The execution timeline started with the posting of two teaser videos on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube during the week that preceded the activation. These videos invited consumers to watch the Live broadcast of the event on Facebook. After that, several GIFs, surveys and other types of posts flooded McDonald’s social media channels to keep the subject on people’s minds.

On the 18th of January, the activation took place in the city of Corpus Christi/Texas and was broadcast Live via Facebook to millions of people all around the country. A narrator and a helicopter pilot commented on the activation on the Live Stream to contextualize it for the public and even interviewed a member of the ground team during the broadcast.

After the drop, a “Case Study Video” was ready to go live only 2 days after activation.

The whole event was broadcast Live via Facebook and the activation brought great increases in levels of engagement and social reach, leading to commercial success:

- Live Broadcasting impacted more than 2.5 million single users.

- The 2nd biggest Live in the history of Facebook Brazil

- A 24,5% increase in sales for the Big Mac Family during the campaign period

- More than 50 thousand interactions during the Live Broadcast.

- Social brand health of 89% positive mentions on social media