It was time to change the conversation and perception about McDonald’s. Building off of the cultural insight that there is too much negativity and hatin’ on social media today, McDonald’s wanted to bring the world a little more Lovin’. We used sports biggest stage to kick off the effort and give something back to show what McDonald’s stands for. We wanted the world to see that McDonald’s chooses Lovin’ above all else.

McDonald’s was the most talked-about brand on Super Bowl Sunday, achieving the #1 share of voice of brand conversations on Twitter with 23% share of mentions and 25% share of impressions of the top 20 brands in the Super Bowl. Consumers were excited to engage with McDonald’s, proving it by making the brand the most re-tweeted brand in a single day ever on Twitter with 433,000 re-tweets. The Pay with Lovin’ promotion both in-store and on Twitter helped drive the largest increase in purchase consideration (+8.1) and largest increase in word of mouth (+9.1) among all advertisers.

The BlueBird effort was strategically implemented on Twitter to drive awareness and participation, allowing McDonald’s to truly disrupt the Super Bowl conversation. Projections were made around the level of conversation and bidding around relevant topics during the game to build an effective investment range with flexibility to scale. A mix of keyword-, interest- and TV-related targeting was developed to drive paid amplification.

Given the fast-paced nature of the execution, real-time monitoring was essential. Each tweet was promoted based on performance to ensure the most engaging tweets reached the greatest scale. Paid search directed interested users during the promotion.

Intending to start a cultural movement by sharing love with the world, McDonald’s sought to prove they stand by selfless love by engaging other Super Bowl brands in a never-been-done-before way. By leveraging second-screen behavior during the largest media event, McDonald’s incentivized consumers to share the love by giving away one product from every brand airing a Super Bowl commercial. Twitter was the selected partner as it allows for easy participation and a chance to build immediate virality. To go beyond McDonald’s fan base, Super Bowl engagers and enthusiasts of other Super Bowl advertisers were targeted.