Brand Experience and Activation > Culture & Context

MAYO MCHACK

EDELMAN, London / HELLMANN'S / 2023

Awards:

Silver Cannes Lions
CampaignCampaign(opens in a new tab)
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Overview

Credits

Overview

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

As the market leader in the UK, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise showed their dedication to mayo and sided with mayo lovers all over the UK to give them what they had been asking for for years - mayo at McDonald’s.

By serving up a simple hack we made it possible to get mayonnaise at all the 1270 McDonald’s restaurants in the UK, even though they didn’t have it on the menu.

But we got McDonald’s to serve more than mayonnaise, as they also they served our message: Mayo and fries is the happiest meal of them all.

Background

Hellmann’s is the number one mayonnaise brand in the UK and has always championed the cause of mayo lovers. As market leaders, they go the extra mile to ensure that mayo lovers can enjoy their favourite condiment wherever they desire.

And while mayonnaise is the most popular condiment in the UK, the major fries seller in the country, McDonald’s, does not offer mayo as a dip. Despite mayo's immense popularity, McDonald’s claims that "there's not enough demand for it."

In a bid to support the rights of mayo lovers, we decided to take a stand against this injustice, and set out to right this wrong.

Describe the creative idea

Though McDonald’s doesn’t serve mayonnaise as a dip, they do serve hundreds of other items. Among them we found The Mayo Chicken burger, which includes… Mayo. In all McDonald’s restaurants and the McDonald’s app, you can customise your Mayo Chicken burger and remove ingredients until there's only one left - mayonnaise.

With this find, we launched The Mayo McHack - a hack that finally gave the UK their well deserved mayonnaise with their fries at McDonald’s. We launched the hack with an integrated campaign and encouraged people to customize their Mayo Chicken burger by de-selecting the chicken, the lettuce and the bun - leaving them with just the mayo. Mayo McHack finally made McDonald’s serve mayonnaise, and people who posted a photo of their hack were compensated for the £1.19 cost of the burger by Hellmann’s.

Describe the strategy

McDonald’s decision to not offer mayo as a dip has left mayo lovers all over the UK feeling disappointed. It's a subject that has been hotly debated in news articles and social media for years.

When McDonald's failed to listen to the demands of their customers, we knew we had to take matters into our own hands. Our strategy was to keep championing the mayo lovers of the UK, but this time serve up a solution for the problem.

By leveraging one of McDonald’s flagship burgers and asking people to turn it into mayonnaise, we turned every McDonald's order screen in the UK into vessels for our campaign.

Taking on a french fries giant in the name of mayo lovers, we didn’t just get McDonald’s to serve mayonnaise to their customers - we got them to serve our message as well; Mayo and fries is the happiest meal of all.

Describe the execution

Every execution of the Mayo McHack campaign guided mayo fans on how to “hack” McDonald’s to serve mayonnaise.

The hack itself, is performed on any of McDonald’s 1270 ordering screens by removing ingredients from the Mayo Chicken burger until there was only mayonnaise left.

To support further, we promoted the hack on DOOH screens outside of McDonald’s restaurants, in print ads in regional newspapers, and on Hellmann’s own social channels.

We also reached out to the hundreds of people on social media who previously had asked McDonald’s to add mayo as a dip, telling them we had come up with a hack to serve them mayo.

To maximise social engagement, we collaborated with 5 foodie influencers who created their own instruction videos.

People who performed the Mayo McHack and uploaded it on social media were compensated for the cost of the Mayo Chicken burger by Hellmann’s.

List the results

Apart from articles in news and trade press, Mayo McHack is one of Hellmann’s UK’s most successful social campaign ever, with an increase of social impressions of + 842% and an increase of engagement of +320%.

Hellmann’s brand consideration was up +46% and purchase intent was impacted significantly with a rise of +9pts and 72% agree that McDonald’s should serve Hellmann’s mayonnaise.

And while some people might see the issue as a small one, the UK didn’t, as the campaign had an increase of +5pts of the UK agreeing Hellmann’s is trying hard to have a positive impact on society. But then again, mayo with your fries is a serious matter. And, two weeks after our campaign ended, McDonald’s launched a limited edition mayonnaise.

On the negative side, McDonald’s weren’t loving it, which resulted in one (1) cease and desist letter from their lawyers.

Please tell us how the work was designed / adapted for a single country / region / market.

The Mayo McHack campaign answers directly to a UK problem. First off, the UK is one of few markets in the world where McDonald’s doesn’t offer mayonnaise as a dip, either for free or for purchase. This, combined with mayonnaise being the preferred condiment in the nation, makes the campaign tailored for the UK.

Is there any cultural context that would help the jury understand how this work was perceived by people in the country where it ran?

Brits, although they’re one of the most mayonnaise loving people in the world, are denied the condiment at the biggest fries seller of the nation.

When we realised that though McDonald’s doesn’t serve mayo as a dip, they do serve it in something else, we served up a hack to finally please every mayo fan in the UK. By siding with mayonnaise lovers and showing we always go further to have their back, Hellmann’s answered the cry for help and made McDonald’s serve mayonnaise and our message.

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