The Background
In November 2018, McDelivery launched in the Irish market. Over the first 20 months it gradually scaled up to a sufficient level which allowed McDonald’s to deploy a national communications strategy in 2020. In November 2020 McDonald’s sponsored I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here on Virgin Media Television as part of the McDelivery launch campaign. The sponsorship proved to be effective for their target audience, so they renewed the sponsorship for November 2021. From then they took their partnership to the next level by sponsoring Family Entertainment on Virgin Media Television in 2022 which included 13 different shows.
This campaign was on the Shortlist for Best Ongoing Use of TV at the TAMI Awards 2023
The Challenge
The challenge for Core Sponsorship was to get frequent / current McDonald’s customers and heavy delivery users that weren’t aware that McDonald’s delivers or hadn’t considered McDelivery as a way to get their favourite order. They also wanted to improve the perception of McDonald’s as a great option for dinner amongst families.
The Strategy
At the outset of the sponsorship, I’m A Celeb was chosen as the sponsorship platform to help launch McDelivery as it offered the perfect opportunity to reach McDonald’s target audience with appointment to view content. The partnership evolved over time due to the growing challenge for McDelivery to maintain momentum and to stand out in an cluttered environment as consumer habits changed due to COVID19.
• 2020 – Raise awareness of McDelivery.
When McDelivery was launched in 2020, the goal was to drive awareness of the new delivery offering. In order to achieve this is we needed something big, that was bang on for the McDelivery target audience of 15-34’s. The awareness of McDelivery in Ireland (pre-covid) was relatively limited with only 1 in 5 adults being aware of it. (Core Research February 2020). Core needed a national, high frequency sponsorship with a number of touchpoints across linear, digital, and social to drive awareness and fast.
• 2021 – Continue to stand out in the crowd amongst an ever increasingly cluttered category.
In 2021 the world was still reeling from the previous year and COVID 19 was very much still part of our lives with ongoing restrictions. The objectives remained consistent with raising awareness of McDelivery, but now also needed to stand out in an increasingly cluttered environment as more restaurants were promoting their delivery services with stores being closed. McDonald’s had once again renewed their sponsorship of I’m A Celeb for the second year as it had proved to be successful in year one and remained one of the biggest shows in the autumn schedule. In 2021 the Sponsorship ROMS were not as strong as the standard TV ROMS. However, given the cost of the Sponsorship to be over doubling the return on investment Core viewed it as a win as it also tied in with the Byron Sharp theory of the need to not only drive short term sales but build a brand.
• 2022 – Continue momentum after the series of IAC ends and improve perception that McDonald’s is a great choice for dinner.
Whilst Core could see that the sponsorship of I’m a Celeb was proving to be effective, once the series finished in early December the use of McDelivery dipped again. To counteract this, they devised a bespoke package with VMTV that would allow McDelivery to exist within a similar space but spread out consistently throughout the year. Starting immediately when IAC ended in Nov 2021, they started the Family Entertainment package which consisted of 13 of the biggest entertainment shows across the schedule. The sponsorship allowed McDonald’s to feature a broad range of stings featuring McDonalds products promoting the cravability of McDonald’s food and driving demand when viewers were primed to make a decision as to what to have for dinner.
The Plan
At the start of 2022, Core Research published their Predicting 2022 report. At the centre of this report, was the findings that ‘Home is where the heart is’. In this report, Core Research reported TV as the medium that performed a critical role in entertaining and stimulating its audiences, whether that be through more considered solus viewing or family bonding time. But as a result of COVID 19, the consumer journey had changed, and touchpoints were different. From a media perspective Core could see that viewing habits were changing and that co-viewing moments at scale for families are very rare and harder to find with a single property. Taking this research into
account, Core focused on maximising our effort around these co-viewing TV moments where families and friends sit down together in the evening to enjoy light entertainment on TV.
The onset of the COVID 19 pandemic changed the terrain for McDelivery and since reopening in May 2020 after the first lockdown, McDelivery became a more important channel for McDonald’s as old routines had been disrupted and delivery usage was expected to continue to grow. Core knew, through research, that the dinner-at-home occasion continued to be the biggest McDelivery opportunity. The meal-for-one and meal-for-two made up 50% of all purchases but they
were under-developed in larger group occasions (3+ and families) * so this was an opportunity and an area of growth for McDelivery.
*Occasion Segmentation Study, March 2019 **Millward Brown 2018 study US, UK, CAN, JPN
As the crisis progressed, more and more people turned to TV as by far the single most important
source of news and information. TV was the main awareness driver; and was the biggest source of return for McDonald’s. TV helped to build positive brand association between entertainment/downtime and McDonald’s. McDonald’s undertake econometrics studies annually on all media activity and TV continues to drive the best return on investment for the brand, and Core were willing to invest in the channel as they knew a positive return was very likely. Core could see from sales trends, that the evening time, post 7pm, is when McDelivery is at its busiest, and they wanted a strategy that really exploited this time when family and friends are sitting down together in the evenings for those co-viewing moments.
This TV sponsorship was an integral part of the overall McDelivery activity. Core specifically wanted a TV partnership that would allow McDeliveryto be very visible at peak order and delivery times which aligned perfectly with the entertainment package. This activity was fully integrated with Search, Social, Digital, and Audio activity that all worked seamlessly together to drive growth of McDelivery.
The Results
McDonald’s undertake econometrics studies annually on all media activity. With the launch of the TV strategy for McDelivery in 2020 all indications showed that AV was powering growth once launched, which informed Core about the need for a TV Sponsorship given the impressive ROMS across the video spectrum.
According to Econometric data, Core can see that AV powered the launch of McDelivery. The sponsorship sustained success and the McDonald’s Econometric data showed strong returns on investment from all aspects of AV despite the higher costs vs other media hence their continued investment.
“Our McDelivery journey with Virgin Media Television has been a really interesting and exciting sponsorship to be part of. Our partnership began with the launch of McDelivery and sponsorship of I’m A Celeb in 2020 after a very turbulent year and was then elevated to become the official sponsor of Family Entertainment which has placed the McDelivery message into the heart of people’s homes during previous co-viewing moments shared by many.”
Jennifer Power, Head of Marketing, McDonald’s Ireland
Credits
Brand:
McDonald’s
Media Agency:
Core Sponsorship
Supporting agencies/teams:
Virgin Media Television
Zenith
Award:
TAMI Awards Shortlist: Best Ongoing Use of TV 2023