Entertainment > Music & Brands

TOGETHERNESS STARTS WITH UNDERSTANDING

NORD DDB, Helsinki / MCDONALD’S / 2022

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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?

The Entertainment Eurobest Award celebrates creativity that turns content into culture. By turning the world’s most know sonic logo into sign language, McDonald’s brought sign language into pop culture in a way that was recognized all over the world.

The “I’m lovin it” sign language logo and music video starring Signmark, the world’s first sign language rapper, shines light on the prejudice deaf people face. This piece of entertainment leaves a permanent mark in culture and makes the deaf community heard in a new and unique environment.

Background

McDonald’s Finland has taken togetherness as their core value in all aspects of their business – environmental, social, and governmental. Rather than just talking about togetherness, McDonald’s wants to create acts of inclusivity.

That’s where the story began. McDonald’s wanted to find new ways of showing inclusivity among its customers and we identified a group that is often forgotten – the deaf community. McDonald’s has a long history of deaf employees, and they are enhancing their accessibility services constantly. Self-order kiosks and mobile ordering are just some of the things the brand has created to enhance deaf inclusivity on the customer side.

Our objectives were to bring accessibility in public conversation and to inform the deaf community about McDonald’s accessibility and the wide range of employment possibilities.

Describe the creative idea

The I’m lovin’ it jingle is one of the world’s most famous sonic logos. We have all heard it before. Or have we?

Sometimes it seems that the society forgets there are people who can’t receive the same information as the rest of us. The deaf community faces many accessibility issues that they just try to cope with, without complaining. We wanted to give a new kind of voice to deaf people and surface some of the issues deaf people face in modern society. By turning McDonald’s sonic logo into sign language, we opened the deaf world for everybody to see, hear, and understand.

Describe the strategy

McDonald’s wants to show the world that by embracing togetherness we can make a real difference. Togetherness blooms when we start embracing inclusiveness and seeing past our differences.

McDonald’s made togetherness a key topic all around the world by addressing the neglect of deaf people. By doing good for one group of people created a ripple effect and had much greater effects than just talking about inclusiveness would have done. This campaign made McDonald’s a much more human, caring, and active brand that believes in actions rather than words.

Describe the execution

The campaign was launched in Finland September 2022. We rolled out the 30 second film ad that played in TV, web TV and social media. We also launched the 3-minute music video where Signmark performs the whole song in sign language.

Describe the outcome

The campaign was recognized by the deaf community all around the world and featured in both domestic and international media channels, such as Adweek, Adage and Finnish financial newspaper Kauppalehti. We reached 52 046 739 people with earned media.

McDonald’s brand image improved drastically as the “Brand for someone like me” metric grew by +12%. Our market leadership gap grew 28% compared to the number two brand in the market.

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