Starring Roles

McDonald’s Director of Adult Marketing, Amy Murray and Ned Flanagan, VP-US Marketing, The Marketing Store, will give a presentation on McDonald’s Global Casting Call, described below, at PROMO Live on Oct. 11.
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Street luger David Dean careens down a hill at 70 mph. For the 22-year-old, nothing beats the adrenaline rush of coasting down a country road near his home in Johnstown, OH.

Dean’s zest for adventure and fun-loving attitude caught the eye of McDonald’s marketers in their global quest to find “real people” to represent the brand.

This spring, the QSR launched its first-ever online Global Casting Call. Some 13,000 people submitted essays and photographs from more than 90 countries, each describing what they love most about life. McDonald’s whittled down the field to 25, including Dean, who will star on McDonald’s cups and bags by the second quarter of 2007.

“This has all been about consumer engagement and connecting with our customers in a different way,” says Amy Murray, director of global marketing, McDonald’s Corp.

The online-only promotion, which was available in 16 different languages, took nearly two years to plan and execute, reaching consumers worldwide.

The burger chain started featuring everyday people (not models) on its packaging in 2004 via London street-casting calls. Later, the company added celebrities (including tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams) to the mix. Since then, the concept has expanded.

For the latest outing, rather than use casting agents to find brand reps, McDonald’s decided to go straight to its customers. “For the first time, we went out to customers and said, ‘We want to put you on 50 million pieces of packaging a day,’” Murray says. “It was an open casting call to the world. It was a natural evolution.”

In April, McDonald’s kicked off the contest by asking consumers to submit an essay of 100 words or less describing what they love most about life; entrants sent essays and a digital photo online to Mcdglobalcasting.com. The grand prize? A posh trip to London for 25 stars and their mug on McDonald’s cups and bags for a year in 2007.

The promotion builds off McDonald’s ongoing “i’m lovin’ it” theme of being forever young. “This was McDonald’s opportunity to really connect and initiate dialogue [with consumers],” says Laura Puente, account director, The Marketing Store, Chicago, which handled the promotion with sister group The Boxer Agency, Birmingham, England.

Halfway through its real-people recruitment, McDonald’s had received 5,000 entries from across the globe. Time zones never posed a problem. Marketing Store reps worked around the clock across the Atlantic while their counterparts slept on the other side of the world.

“The Internet never sleeps,” Puente says. “People could submit [essays] at their convenience.”

McDonald’s agencies spent months reviewing guidelines and privacy laws with its legal department to ensure the program was culturally relevant, Puente says. Parents submitted essays on their children’s behalf for countries with age restrictions.

The promotion drew tens of millions of hits on the Web site. Online materials, radio spots and p.r. supported.

Perhaps one of the biggest hurdles was narrowing the pool from 13,000 entries to the core 25. It took “thousands of man hours and tough decisions to come to the final cast,” Murray recalls. “The stories were so amazing, you wanted to read more.”

“[We] had to lock everyone in a room for a week,” Puente adds. “It took days, at least a week to get to some manageable level.”

In all, it took McDonald’s and Marketing Store reps three months to wade through the sea of entries from consumers, who ranged in age from five to 85. Judges selected the cast based on story uniqueness and photo submissions.

“We wanted a diversity of ideas and cultures and activities,” Murray says. “We wanted to encompass our entire worldwide restaurant and our entire customer base.”

Of the final cast, eight are from the U.S., eight are from Europe, four are from Latin America, one is from Canada and four are from Asia. While the stars differ by age, race and culture, together they share one common trait — being young at heart.

Take five-year-old Roni Ahumada Carvalho, McDonald’s youngest star, for example. The Buenos Aires, Argentina resident won judges over writing about his love of swimming. “My passion is the water,” he wrote. “The bottom of the sea fascinates me.”

Whether it’s a dancer striving for her dream, the thrill of flying or the love of a sport, McDonald’s knows what it takes to drive consumers. “You really understand what passion is all about,” Puente says.

The campaign, which ran through May 31, in part may reflect a change in McDonald’s strategy to grow beyond its American brand association to a global icon.

“Five to 10 years ago, they were an American brand that was available around the world. There is something different in the strategy now, which loses that American-based tag,” says Scott Hume, executive managing editor for the Oak Brook, IL-based Restaurants & Institutions. “McDonald’s really wants to be simply a worldwide brand that is popular with all ages, all people and all countries.”

A Fresh Face

Paula Glenn knows how to stop traffic. It doesn’t take much for the 43-year-old — just a winning smile and a trusty stop sign.

Glenn soon will catch consumers’ attention beyond busy streets — on McDonald’s cups and bags. The Dallas woman was one of 25 people selected in the QSR’s global promotion to feature real people on its packaging. McDonald’s chose Glenn for her volunteer effort as a traffic mom at her daughter’s school last year.

Glenn entered McDonald’s Global Casting Call after hearing about it on the news.

“McDonald’s [asked] for normal, regular people to be on their bags and cups,” Glenn says. “That was my first interest. I thought, why not? What did I have to lose?”

In her essay, Glenn described how she formed a traffic committee with other parents, after she saw reckless drivers speeding through school zones.

“I just stood there everyday with my arms out stopping traffic so the kids could cross the street,” Glenn recalls. “I did this everyday. It felt good…noticing the changes in the traffic. I made a difference.”

Two months after Glenn submitted her essay, McDonald’s called with the good news. Glenn’s image will brand millions of McDonald’s cups and bags across its 31,000 restaurants worldwide in 2007.

“I was in total shock,” Glenn recalls. “I couldn’t sleep for about two weeks after they called. I never imagined being a little traffic mom with kids would interest a company as big and as global as McDonald’s.”

McDonald’s sent Glenn and her best friend on an all-expense paid trip to London last month for a photo shoot with the 24 other stars, treating guests to a tour of London and tickets to Mama Mia.

Already, Glenn’s eagerly awaiting the final packaging results. You’ll likely find her at a Dallas-area McDonald’s the day her image debuts.

“I’m telling my friends, ‘don’t you let me catch you throwing away those cups and bags’”, Glenn laughs. “Hopefully, someone will notice my image. That is going to be the best.”
— Amy Johannes