MCDONALD'S
Razorfish 2013-14
I joined Razorfish as Creative Director in April 2013 to win new business and help tackle the burgeoning McDonald's UK digital account, which had grown in quality and quantity. It's fair to say I know the brand pretty well.
The work typically consisted of announcing and supporting rolling promotions - seasonal burgers, new drinks - as well as keeping the brand's stalwarts front of mind (the 'favourites', the Breakfast menu, Saver Menu etc). The following are a selection of campaigns I delivered.
BIG TASTES, SMALL PRICES
The Saver Menu - Big Tastes. Small Prices.
A small campaign but one of my favourites - largely because it was so much fun to make.
The brief was to emphasize the value offering - the food you love at a price you can always afford. We needed a campaign that could last year round, supported by two bursts of media - as well as announce new additions to the menu itself.
The idea by the creative team (Matt Mitchell and Matt Seccombe) was very simple. To dramatise the fact that the Saver Menu is packed with huge, iconic flavours while the cost remains relatively tiny, we created seven themed mini-dioramas full of teeny people marvelling at the prices, shot in crisp focus, with a very shallow depth of field, inviting interaction and discovery with a user-controlled magnifying glass.
We engaged French Photographer Vincent Boussarez, who painstakingly crafted each of our scenes and bought and choreographed the little people we found, retouching many of them to ensure ethnic equality and McDonald's brand colours.
Moving the lens around to both zoom and focus the areas of the image hidden within the bokeh revealed tiny little sub-stories - skiers face down in the snow, buskers playing and even a few fire walkers.
Breakfast - Wake Up Tenchniques
This was a really small campaign activated through social media to get people talking about the McDonald's iconic Sausage & Egg McMuffin. But I like it.
Instead of creating a series of Facebook paid ads, the creative team (again Matt Seccombe and Matt Mitchell) had a better idea - to launch a series of charming 20s animations, showing the lengths people go to make sure they wake up in the morning (which is of course the only time you can buy one before they switch to the lunch menu).
Running once a week, each story (illustrated and animated by Stephen Ong) chronicled a fabulous invention or 'Wake Up Technique' to get you up in time. They were housed in a Facebook tab, so if you discovered them late, you could catch up on the previous ones. They ended with the line, Worth Waking Up For, and I'm pretty much in agreement.
Mocha Mobile Promotion
To help launch Mocha as part of the McCafé range, we created a promotion on the McDonald's UK app, allowing people to shake their phone for the chance to win one for free - replicating the sprinkling of cocoa powder onto the frothy cream.
If the chocolate sprinkles resulted in a win message, you could present it to the member of staff at till point to claim your free Mocha. Simple and effective.
Deli of the Day
There's not a great amount to say about the Deli campaign except that it was turned around in three weeks - from concept sign off to completion. The idea was to convey the fact that with the Daily Deal on Deli (try saying that when you've had a couple) Lunchtime Can't Come Soon Enough.
We created five short films, all dramatising a countdown to lunch, followed by a somewhat cheesy celebration, and today's 'deli deal' (essentially a pound off the normal price).
The shoot (by Blac Ionica) is memorable largely because it was scheduled the day after the Razorfish Christmas Party, and featured the most hungover group of people trying to muster up feedback on hand artists and maraca-shaking you're ever likely to meet. One creative hadn't actually been to bed.
