Hey friend – Rob here.

Last week i wrote about how Heinz's red hot work is working.

Based on new Salmon Theory+ subscribers, that seems to have struck a chord!

So, let's continue with our journey into the comforting world of effectiveness.

(That magical place where all the uncertainty of our contributions as strategists gets... er, less uncertain.)

And today, we're talking about McDonald's.

Specifically, some of their wonderfully entertaining and eyebrow raising work from last year.

So what's the story behind the ad, and what's the success we can attribute to it?

Well, thankfully, this one won Silver at the Creative Effectiveness Lions.

So let's get into the meat of it and find out why.

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🚨 The problem.

After Covid-19, things weren't easy for McDonald's.

Operational issues, supply chain problems, rising production costs, all leading to forced price increases.

As a result, brand love growth was slowing down, from 4.5% per year to 1.2%.

Booooo!

🎯 The objectives.

They wanted to achieve four things:

1. Business objective: Return sales growth to pre-Covid levels (7.7% per year).
2. Marketing objective: Increase market share from 24% by at least 1 percentage point.
3. Brand objective: Grow brand love to an all-time high of over 40%.
4. Comms objective: Increase "It made me feel good about the brand" to an all-time high of 25%.

Hmmm, i love the taste of deliciously clear objectives.

Almost as much as i love a Chicken McNugget.

... almost.

🧭 The strategy.

They turned to ethnography across the UK to try and crack this one.

And y'know what, it paid off like a charm.

They realised the most emotionally charged moment in the McDonald's experience wasn't eating the food.

Nah, it was the act of suggesting it to others.

(My LOVES a Big Mac, so i can attest to this being indeed an emotional highlight whenever i bring Maccas up.)

And the thing is, these suggestions were rarely verbal.

They were subtle gestures, nods, looks.

One particularly common signal?

You guessed it: the eyebrow raise.

Which, wouldn't y'know it, was sooooo similar to the shape of McDonald's Golden Arches.

So the focus was clear.

Turn the eyebrow raise into a branded behaviour that everyone could participate in, and recognise.

Sweet as an Oreo-flavoured McFlurry.

💡 The idea.

Don't feature food or restaurants.

Feature the suggestive eyebrows instead.

And "Raise Your Arches" was born.

This led to them replace the Golden Arches with stylised eyebrows across owned media channels.

More famously, it led to this ad which didn't show any products or even mention the brand name.

As well as a series of posters that followed the same eyebrow-raising approach.

Last but not least, they gave people a chance to raise their own arches on social.

Triple layered burger excellence.

Perfectly balanced.

As it should be.

📊 The results.

Lovely work, but did it work?

Hell yeah it did.

Campaign effects:

• The "Raise Your Arches" campaign got record levels of ad awareness (45%).
• Partly because the campaign generated 200 million impressions in the UK alone (3x frequency yo!).
• But awareness alone, as we know, is not enough, so let's get to the meaty stuff...

Brand effects:

• Brand love reached an all-time high of 43% (the initial target was 40%).
• The rate of brand love growth increased to 4.7% (above pre-Covid levels).
• Visiting intent scores rose to 53% (despite 75% saying they were cutting back on takeaways and restaurants).

Commercial effects:

• Market share growth increased from 24% to 26.5% (original target was 1 percentage point growth).
• Sales growth reached 10.6% (above pre-Covid levels).
• £43.7 million in incremental revenue (despite the economic context and McD's first price rise in 14 years).

It was McDonald's most successful global campaign ever, adopted by over 35 markets worldwide.

And it gave them an effective way to advertise themselves given upcoming regulations on HFSS products.

No product, no brand, just some proper imagination around a simple gesture.

Well done Leo Burnett and McDonald's, it's a genuinely wonderful piece of work.

Aaaaaaand now i feel like a milkshake.

Damn it.

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