How McDonald’s won more respect

Case film: Deal with the Trash

The entry Deal with the Trash won a gold at Eurobest and contributed to Nord DDB keeping their position as the most creative agency in the Nordic region.

The campaign is created for McDonald’s by Nord DDB:s branch in Stockholm. It highlights the hamburgers chains social and environmental responsibilities and at the same it point a finger to their competitors in a subtle and friendly manner.

The Eurobest gold implies that the campaign ewokes a number of emotions that triggers human actions and attitudes. That it now proven by using Moodscores method for measuring the emotional strength of communication

“The emotional impact of a campaign is crucial for a brand both on a long- and short-term basis”, Petter Dixelius says. He is creative lead of DDB Nord Stockholm for long term client McDonald’s Sweden.  “And it is also crucial for commercial results”.

“We know that emotional communication generally creates far better effect, than rational arguments. Human beings are far more emotional and irrational in their thinking and behaviour than generally expected.”

“You need to surprise the target group in a relevant way to succeed”, Peter says. “Easy to say, hard to achieve.”

Deal with the Trash for MacDonald scored well above the average of all campaigns measured by Moodscores. The factor Cognitive Ease was recorded to a nine, which is the highest possible, and above the seven that is the Ease average for advertising in general. Among moods that helped people understand the message is that nine out of ten consumers felt at ease by quickly recognising the brand behind the initiative. Along with an eight for the factor Sympathy (average six) and the Acceptance score of seven (average eight) made up for a Moodscore of 76 out of a possible 100. The average emotional strength for campaign videos is 48.

“The most complex issue and hardest nut to crack is acceptance”, Petter says. “You need to realise that you never can convince the true sceptics and instead focus on reaching those ambivalent ones and make them grasp your message.”

“Depending on the core values of the brand you need to find relevant emotional strings to play to reach out and build long term results. Especially in the present blowy environment, caused by the Covid, followed by a severe inflation that hurt the wallets of Swedish consumers badly.”

“In tough times, the emotional effects are far more important than rational benefits on the long-term strength of a big brand like McDonald’s. An emotional approach makes people open their senses and listen to what the brand wants to communicate”.

The Deal with the Trash campaign is built on Big enough to make a difference, a concept created in 2018.

“The trick is to hang in and hold out”, according to Petter.