2008 Ex Award Winners: Best Multi-Venue Event (Consumer)

Best Multi-Venue Event (Consumer)

Ex Award
Campaign: McDonald’s Live
Client: McDonald’s
Agency: TBA Global

McDonald’s needed a super-sized idea for reconnecting with young adults. (You know those highly coveted yet squirrelly 18-to-24-year-olds with a finely tuned B.S.-meter that goes off at the first sign of old school-style marketing and advertising? Yeah them.) So to show them that Mickey-D’s gets who they are and what they’re about the brand tapped into two new territories: the music market and its own parking lots.

The McDonald’s Live concert series kicked off July 26 and was held at 14 McDonald’s restaurants in 10 markets over three months. The tour hit cities from Los Angeles to Philadelphia and featured emerging artists like Ne-Yo and Kenna Single File Sean Kingston Kevin Michael and Keri Hilson. Between 500 and 1 500 young adults in each market could swing by McDonald’s on a week night grab a snack and watch the free concert with their peers.

Performances were recorded and then posted to the tour’s website mcdlive.com. The 10-market program went national online where consumers who couldn’t attend the live shows could check out on-demand video downloads of the concerts and vote for their favorite artist forward content to their friends get free new music downloads and grab Quarter Pounder coupons. The musical act with the most votes won a featured spot in a 2008 McDonald’s ad campaign. The brand further leveraged a partnership with MTV who promoted McDonald’s Live artists on air and at Yahoo! Music the number one online music destination.

In market McDonald’s partnered with local radio stations with pre-event promotional mentions; in-studio interviews; listener contests; live at-event remote broadcasts and on-air ticket giveaways. Online the brand did website postings email and text message blasts to fans. At the event street teams engaged consumers and facilitated meet-and-greets after the shows. French fry packaging featured concert dates and info and tied in seamlessly with the tour’s website which included interactive packages of ketchup that squirted with the click of a mouse.

In the end more than one million votes were cast the campaign generated 200 million impressions preference skyrocketed 76 percent and brand affinity jumped 83 percent. Sales immediately increased at each of the host restaurants. One flagship location enjoyed an all-time sales record thanks to the concert.

“What McDonald’s Live did for us is reinforce the power of brand-produced content and event marketing in terms of creating an engaging and memorable experience ” says Douglas Freeland director of U.S. marketing at McDonald’s. “It gives you an opportunity to make an inextricable link between the consumer experience and the brand. That dynamic leads to brand loyalty.”

Young adults get something fun to do on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday night. Bands just on the verge of hitting it big offer a rare free concert experience. And kids in key demos credit McDonald’s for bringing the whole shebang right to their own backyard. Bam! A brand association is born. We’ll definitely take a side of fries with that.


Gold Award
Campaign: Brew Some Good
Client: Kraft/Maxwell House
Agency: OgilvyAction

Maxwell House had to come up with a way to cater to consumers’ evolving caffeine palettes while maintaining its simple cup o’ joe appeal. So it created a new blend of 100 percent Arabica beans. All it had to do now was get it in consumers’ hands. The answer: Maxwell House launched the Brew Some Good campaign the day before Thanksgiving. It outfitted toll booths and toll booth workers with Maxwell House branding in eight metro areas across the country. The idea was that each toll would be on the house—Maxwell House. Commuters were given a sample of the 100 percent Arabica blend to try out at home and a coupon to drive traffic to stores.

Maxwell House also made a donation to America’s Second Harvest for every toll they paid. For non-drivers the brand hit the busiest subway stations in each of the five New York City boroughs. Commuters were welcomed by Maxwell House signage and given samples along with free round-trip MTA Metro-Cards.

For a week Maxwell House made its way onto one of America’s favorite game shows “Wheel of Fortune ” where Pat Sajak reminded viewers that the brand was brewing some good.

And on Black Friday Maxwell House brewed some good for millions of sleepy shoppers lined up outside malls. When shoppers marched in Maxwell House greeted them with a custom-built giant Maxwell House cup. More than 150 000 shoppers in 15 cities stopped by to sample the new brew. Maxwell House also did in-store sampling. Overall the brand distributed 2 156 600 samples and received 41 748 912 media impressions. Maxwell House’s coffee business grew its baseline consumption more than 12 percent its strongest growth since 1998.


Silver Award
Campaign: Dockers Style Sessions
Client: Levi Strauss & Co.
Agency: Grow Marketing

When 20-something women think of Dockers they probably aren’t visualizing a quintessential feminine clothing line so the brand launched a nationwide series of style sessions to change its perception among young women. At the exclusive invitation-only gatherings a select group of influencers were given the opportunity to experience Dockers’ Fall 2007 product line with the help of style experts that worked with the guests to create looks that complemented their body types.

Guests arrived in the sleek minimally designed space and were allowed to relax with appetizers and beverages before being invited in for their own semi-private style session. Inside Dockers brand experts and style experts shared the fall line with them retrieving a variety of different styles from the collection and helping guests put together outfits that wowed. After trying on as many new styles as they wanted guests were given a mini-makeover by a cosmetics expert.

The perception of Dockers as a men’s khaki slacks company was completely blown away by the event. With 50 percent of attendees unaware that Dockers made clothing for women until the event brand awareness was greatly increased. In addition 97 percent of visitors said they wanted to hear from the brand again. And 95 percent would recommend Dockers to their friends and colleagues 67 percent said they would seek out Dockers women’s clothing as a result of attending the session and 72 percent intend to purchase Dockers clothing for themselves.