McDonald's: REAL-TIME OLYMPICS

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: McDONALD’S
Agency: NIM DIGITAL
Category: Best Use of Mobile Devices
Advertising campaign: REAL-TIME OLYMPICS
Copywriter: Joyce Fu (NIM Digital)
Associate Creative Director: Lemon Dao (NIM Digital)
Account Director: Leo Qu (NIM Digital)
Group Account Director: Raymond Zhou (NIM Digital)
Chief Executive Officer: Gordon Zhang (NIM Digital)
National Strategic Planning Director: Jamo Woo (NIM Digital)
Senior Account Manager: Lisa Xu (Nim Digital)

Execution
The mobile app is the key to success of media implementation. Thanks to the increasing penetration of smartphone in China, many customers would be able to compete with the athletes by holding smartphone and doing same sport action while they are watching the live games in McDonald’s stores.A thematic TVC was employed to demonstrate the excitement of the campaign. Store crews were assigned to encourage customers to install the app using free WIFI. Also, we partnered with China's biggest app store - Tencent App Store, to promote download. Groups of opinion leaders on social media were chosen to share the experience of Real-time Olympics, calling for more fans to participate.

Strategy
To augment McDonald’s London 2012 Olympics sponsorship among Chinese consumers and overcome the problem that the time difference meant that the Games would be broadcast in the middle of the night in China, a smartphone app called 'Real-time Olympics' is created to engage consumers with the Olympics while they were in McDonald’s outlets. The app used GPS and a motion sensor technology to allow people to ‘compete’ against Olympians in a mobile game while watching live games in all McDonald’s outlets in China, which made it the world’s first-ever Olympic games that turned audience into athletes.

Effectiveness
It became a phenomenon with 3 million downloads and 7.5 millions total plays during London 2012 Olympics. More than 4,500,000 in-app coupons were delivered to generate estimated $8.7 million sales (based on $1.9 average purchase per guest) and total summer business went up by 20%. More importantly, McDonald’s became the only one to provide every Chinese with the complete Olympics' experience.