Category Digital and Mobile
Subcategory Online games and branded games
Entrant agency OMD Sweden
Client McDonalds
Brand McDonalds
Product/service Happy Meal
Release date 05.03.2016
Advertising agency DDB Sweden
Media agency OMD Sweden
ACCOUNT MANAGER Emanuel Falsen
ACCOUNT MANAGER Jonny Falt
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST Sara Regner

Our core objective and 'reason to exist' was, and remains to be, to make McDonald's a fun place for families, giving our core audience reasons not just to come, but to keep coming back. It’s an unfortunate fact that families are buying significantly fewer Happy Meals than they used to. The key driver of this was that McDonald’s reputation as a fun place for families had been under pressure. As an indicator of this, the brand metric "a place where my family enjoy spending their time" was down -5% YoY. Our objective was to make McDonalds a fun place for families again and getting families engaged in the Happy Meal again.

We needed to step out of our traditional agency role and deliver real product innovation. But how do you change the most iconic box in the world? We concluded that you don't – and instead you upgrade it, turning it into a modern and progressive play experience. So we launched Happy Goggles! This allowed kids to turn their Happy Meal box, destined for the bin, into a pair of google cardboard VR glasses. A vehicle to deliver fun and educational experiences in the restaurant and beyond. The initial game was a VR skiing game "Se upp i backen" tying into McDonald's sponsorship of the national ski team and encouraging safe skiing on the slopes.

With an extremely limited budget we needed to develop a communications plan that facilitated unprecedented earned spread. We therefore decided to 'act like a tech company' and launch and trial the Happy Goggles cost-effectively in market. We ran special events in Sweden’s leading family restaurants and put out a targeted 'invitation to play' via social media. Happy Googles were first onto Facebook canvas in Sweden with a creative media solution that demonstrated the product, promoted downloading of the app and invited our audience to the restaurants. We also fueled this fire by inviting Sweden’s most influential and socially connected families to the restaurants and in addition to native advertising on leading family and tech webs

The Happy Goggles initiative delivered +18% sales uplift in selected restaurants during the campaign and unpresented viral spread for the same price as 1 week outdoor campaign. - 2,3m Facebook & YouTube video views with engagement rates of 10% high above benchmark - 175m total earned media impressions and - 1,5m unique visits to Happygoggles.se We now have a strong case put to McDonald’s global to fund turning every HM Box into a VR headset - a decision that would re-democratize gaming, making Happy Goggles the biggest gaming console in the world.