In 2023, McDonald’s Hong Kong decided to permanently upgrade all its coffee to McCafé coffee. Although McDonald’s coffee was one of the most consumed coffee brands in Hong Kong, it was also the least talked about. This campaign demonstrates how we were able to generate massive attention and conversation around our coffee upgrade via a bold and creative announcement in the span of one day, propelling McDonald's coffee from the least to the most talked about coffee brand. In the end, our bold announcement also created lasting sales increase and made McDonald's the no.1 player in Hong Kong's coffee market.

Since the introduction of its McCafé sub-brand in Hong Kong, McDonald’s has been on a long-term mission to democratize high quality coffee in Hong Kong. For many years, McDonald’s has offered two tiers of coffee offerings - the base McDonald's coffee and higher quality McCafé coffee. With consistent efforts throughout the years, McCafé coffee is perceived to be on part with major players in the coffee category at a more affordable price point with greater convenience. In the latest chapter of its coffee-democratization mission to win the market, McDonald's decided to institute a permanent free coffee upgrade, replacing McDonald’s coffee with McCafé coffee across all its stores to further capture the coffee market. Before the campaign, McDonald’s share of the Hong Kong coffee market sat at 17%, behind the category leader Starbucks which sat at 25%. With this upgrade, we had the ambition to become number one.

Although this all-store coffee upgrade was a monumental event in the coffee landscape in McDonald’s perspective, consumers did not necessarily feel the same. In recent years, Hong Kong’s coffee landscape has undergone significant premiumisation, with different higher end coffee chains entering the market as well as local boutique independent cafés. With coffee conversations in the city driven by these new players with more sophisticated coffee origin stories and innovative preparation methods, McDonald’s only had a 2% share-of-voice on social media compared to other major coffee brands. McDonald’s needed a way to create an impactful announcement that would capture the city’s attention, and give this massive coffee upgrade the attention it deserved, ultimately increasing McDonald's market share in Hong Kong’s increasingly premium coffee market.

Although Hong Kong’s coffee marketing is undergoing premiumisation, coffee still fulfils a functional purpose in many customers’ lives. This is the market that McDonald’s coffee plays in, being many people’s daily coffee driver across a variety of occasion. In our focus groups, many customers have expressed fondness for McDonald’s and especially McCafé coffee’s surprising quality at affordable price points. Although McDonald's coffee is one of the most consumed coffees in Hong Kong, it is also the least talked about on social media. We wanted to leverage silent McDonald’s coffee fans to help us amplify our big upgrade announcement. To achieve this, we went back to a fundamental human insight – you only realize your love for something when you lose it. We wanted to spark a public outcry to grab attention for McDonald’s surprisingly good quality and large fanbase, and then delight customers with our massive upgrade announcement.

Our idea: “McDonald's Coffee is Retiring!” We decided to give our silent McDonald’s coffee lovers a shock by announcing that McDonald’s coffee is retiring, prompting them to stir up a ripple of organic conversations on social media that will help our announcement become the talk of the town.

Our announcement began with a single social post – “McDonald’s Coffee is Retiring - It will say goodbye today!”. To give gravitas to our announcement, we dominated the front-page of all free newspapers in town, featuring a white McDonald’s coffee cup and our bold statement. We also dominating major touchpoints to reach everyone on the way to the office or school, including all 3 of Hong Kong’s cross-harbour tunnels and various outdoor ads. On the same day, when conversation levels were at its highest, we revealed that the reason behind the retirement was in fact a free permanent upgrade to McCafé coffee!

The campaign took the city by storm! We generated a total of USD$2.1 million worth of PR value with an overwhelmingly positive tonality.

Mentions of McDonald's coffee went from near 0 before the campaign to over 90,000 social mentions, propelling McDonald’s social-share-of-voice among major coffee brands from only 2% in the months preceding the campaign to a whopping 40% during the month of the campaign, making it the most discussed coffee brand on social media.

In terms of sales impact, our coffee upgrade increased total coffee sales by 21% (measuring one month after our announcement).

As a result of this campaign, McDonald’s was able to overtake the market share of the leading player in Hong Kong’s coffee market for the first time, ahead of Starbucks’ market share by 1%, reaching a new milestone in McDonald's mission to democratize high quality coffee in Hong Kong.

Our all-store coffee upgrade was free of charge, meaning customers could now enjoy higher quality McCafé coffee at no extra cost. Although price may have played a factor, we could not have achieved sustained incremental coffee sales and growth in coffee market share without the massive awareness that our creative announcement generated around the quality of McDonald’s and McCafé coffee.