Whoever says fast food and adults don't mix apparently hasn't heard of the McDonald's "mature" hamburger campaign. You know, the one with the grown-up taste, the Arch Deluxe. In an effort to expand its audience and round out its menu to tempt adults, the quick-fix burger giant handed its new product to the world, after a much-hyped national multimedia marketing campaign created by Golin Harris Public Relations, in Chicago, and McDonald's Corporation, based in Oak Brook, Ill.
By the time the public could try the Arch Deluxe, chances are they'd already long since heard about it.
The campaign had three phases, all dependent on each other for the Arch Deluxe's success. The strategies of the campaign were to create a single, simultaneous launch event for the U.S. and Canadian McDonald's (Toronto) corporations and to provide the groundwork for local marketing activities that would run in conjunction with the launch.
The eight-month international campaign, launched on May 9, 1996, was created to promote awareness and prompt trial of the product, while communicating McDonalds' long-term commitment to a new product for adults. Raising domestic sales was a major concern for McDonald's executives, who decided that a new burger for a new audience were the way to go.
The Three-Tiered Campaign
Golin Harris and McDonald's began planning the campaign in mid-April, and GH's research was minimal, based on McDonalds' ongoing research and findings from previous marketing campaigns. The Arch Deluxe launch would target everyone - local, national and international - as all three phases of the campaign launched simultaneousy. Neither McDonald's nor Golin Harris would disclose the budget for the launch.
The Ronald Sightings Teaser campaign introduced the product in an effort to create a buzz about McDonald's without giving away the name or nature of the new product. The month-long campaign featured "surprise publicity appearances" by Ronald McDonald at such "grown-up" media events as the Academy Awards, Kentucky Derby and New York fashion shows.
Locally, hundreds of Ronald sightings at community events were covered in print and broadcast media. TV ads with Ronald popping up at a dance club, golf tournament and pool hall were shown about two weeks before the launch.
"We wanted to capture the imaginations of both the customers and the media," said Bridgit Marshall, director of PR at McDonald's Corp.
The "Arch Deluxe Moment in Time" allowed McDonalds' internal audiences, media and customers to watch the actual unveiling of the sandwich live via satellite. It was broadcast live from New York at Radio City Music Hall and in Los Angeles at the Pacific Cinerama Theatre, which was transformed into a giant 7-story Arch Deluxe sandwich sculpture for the event.
PR activities that complemented the launch were a few thousand "Deluxe Deliveries" of the sandwich, sent to media who couldn't attend the unveiling, including food, lifestyle and marketing editors at top newspapers. "We used every available media road, and GH ran a satellite media tour and scheduled national public appearances, featuring McDonalds' executive chef, Andrew Selvaggio, who created the sandwich.
What followed a month after the launch was the "Deluxe Year at McDonald's" Sustaining Program, created to keep interest in the Arch Deluxe high. It included: a presentation by the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, Dick Grasso, of the 100 millionth Arch Deluxe sold - four weeks after the launch - a 25-city local market media tour by McDonalds' executive chef and "Arch Deluxe Day" in the Athlete's Village at the Atlanta Summer Olympic Games.
Cathy Nemeth, formerly of GH, who worked on the Arch Deluxe campaign last spring, now director of marketing communications at McDonald's, said that the launch "exceeded our expectations, it took on a life of its own. It was so aggressive, aligned and integrated, including all of our key messages.
"We were given the chance to use all of our skills, in being creative, working with the media, planning events...it encompassed the entire realm of PR. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and although it was hard, we mobilized our troops and went to battle."
Financial experts say that the Arch Deluxe is not as successful as McDonald's had hoped it would be. The Wall Street Journal reported in mid-December that McDonald's skipped the usual lengthy testing process of a new product in order to get the Arch Deluxe out quickly to the public, in an effort to raise sales immediately.
McDonald's had hoped the highly touted Spring launch would help reverse a recent trend in declining quarter-to-quarter sales in domestic stores open for at least a year. So far, that hasn't happened, since the last time the Golden Arches posted positive U.S. quarterly sales growth was in mid-1995.
Of the two billion media impressions generated by the campaign, there were nine mentions of the product on CNN, 12 mentions on late night talk shows and four in USA Today articles. GH phone surveys showed that within five days of the national launch, 65 percent of all Americans knew about the Arch Deluxe. By day nine, the number jumped up to 81 percent.
McDonald's and GH definitely succeeded in getting the Arch Deluxe word out, to make the media and consumers aware and curious about the product before, during and after the launch. But the company's sales so far, as a result of "our biggest launch since the Big Mac," according to Marshall, which was supposed to help boost sales, have not exactly been promising. (McDonald's Corp., 630/623-3730; Golin Harris, 312/836-7100)