The Mac is back: how Wieden+Kennedy gave McDonald's its swagger
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Sunsets, the CMO. Now one team absolutely on fire at the moment is the Weidling Kennedy team on McDonald's in the US. They've been producing some of the world's most effective, most fame building work out there. Famous orders, as featured in, I'm sure you have seen it. So I'm over at the Wyden and Kennedy offices, catching up with Taz and Brandon, the team behind this campaign, to find out how they did it and just how effective it is and how it's driving business results.
Jon:This is a really cool episode. There's so much to learn from it, and I know you're gonna love it. Welcome to the show, gents.
Brandon:Thanks, John.
Tass:Thank you very much.
Jon:Well, just for the audience to, get to know you, I thought I'd start with a couple of questions for both of you just to kind of find out a bit about you. So, Taz, I understand you started your career at BBH in London. Is that right?
Tass:Yeah. I spent the first 9 years there.
Jon:How does BBH compare to Wyden and Kennedy? Because the the all the debate about, you know, London agencies versus New York agencies, what can you tell us about the difference between the 2?
Tass:You you know, they they were founded in the same year. So 1982, both stayed independent for a good 30 years till those guys sold out. But, you know, and and what's and they put creativity at the top. Right? I think what was that first BBH belief?
Tass:The the the power of creativity and the primacy of the idea. So it's all about ideas, you know. It's where I learnt my love for the creative product, for interesting people. But there is a there is a difference in cultures. You know, I I think at BBH they talked about processes that liberate creativity.
Tass:And that here we're a bit scared of process. We're scared that process can get in the way of creativity. Over there, you know, I think an interesting analogy was I remember Bogle once said, you know, I want us to be like consultants. Right? We go in there.
Tass:We're like McKinsey. Right? Don't don't be, you know, silly and stuff. Here, it's like be stupid. Ship of fools.
Tass:I I remember doing the first pitch. I did the forward pitch, and I turned up wearing a blazer. And they laughed at me. They went, oh, Tascott blazer on. Look at that.
Tass:Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they were all in hoodies and Nikes. I went, oh, of course. Because I think you were saying this with Hagg with Hagg ironically the other day.
Tass:It's like creativity is what we're selling. That's all we have. And that's the only thing that clients can't do. Right? So don't go in there looking like them.
Tass:Go in there looking like that thing that they're scared of, but need, and that, you know, and that's that's really the the difference, I would say, the big difference.
Jon:Yeah. I love it. As as a client, I love going to agencies because you you can kinda dress like them. So go, oh, I'm I'm gonna be like the agency for the day rather than have to sort of wear the suit, turn up to the, you know, the meeting with your customer sort of thing. Now we're gonna be talking in a minute about famous orders.
Jon:So give me
Tass:your what would your order be from McDonald's? Always been a Big
Jon:Mac guy. So Big Mac,
Tass:So Big Mac, fries, and then strawberry milkshake for me, which always takes me back to going shopping with my mum when I was about 8, and she just wants to shut me up. That's for me. That's my order.
Jon:It's funny how it brings back memories, isn't it? Because chocolate milkshake for me was the thing. That was the naughty treat when I was a kid, and it just it went when I've got daughters, they're teenagers. That's what they would have. And it just triggers that beautiful whole
Tass:strategy. I'm sure. I'm sure. We will
Brandon:come on to that. Definitely. Okay.
Jon:Let me go to Brandon. So, so how did you end up here? And you've been at the agency for quite some time. So what is it that inspires you about the agency?
Brandon:Well, I'm gonna sound like a caveman after that speech from Tas. I mean, I you know, I started at Saatchi, right out of college, and back then, they hired us, like, 25 at a time. You know, it was like you were in there, like, a freshman class, and they would give you this big speech about how half of you won't won't make it 2 years, a quarter of you won't make it 5. That was a, it was interesting, though. Like, you know, we work on Procter and Gamble, General Mills, J and J, these big brands where, you know, you really learn the nuts and bolts of what it means to be an account person, how an agency The thing The thing that was unique for me there that I think came naturally was working and relating with creatives.
Brandon:You know, I think at a really young age, they were sending me up to the 18th floor to talk to the creatives, usually to give bad news. And, you know, that and I would kinda come down being, like, yeah. Sort of it. We figured it out. And I think it was just I came up there with the right attitude, wanting to not trying to be slick or sell and just and I think that kinda idea pushed me once I learned something about the business after being there for a few years, you know, you start to get obsessed with so how can I find my way into Wieden and Kennedy, which took me a long time to do?
Brandon:I couldn't get arrested here. I would have meetings with people that didn't know why they were there or for jobs that had been filled weeks prior already, and they just forgot to cancel it. But then once I'd snuck in here, you know, it's just it's it's unlike any other place on Earth. And so it's really has not been a chore to stay here this long.
Jon:I mean, we're talking about fun, weren't we? And and, you know, how would you describe the culture and that makes it so special?
Brandon:The the one of the most interesting things about this place is it's filled with so many people that could feel like they were the most important person in the room, but no one in this entire organization feels like if the cover of the book came out tomorrow, they'd be on the cover. We're all lucky to be here because of all the work that preceded us, and and I think that, you know, people feel like at their best. They just hope they'd be a part of something that they'd move something on the shelf over to be a part of this great history, and I think that's rare for any agency to feel there's that much reverence for what it means to be here. And I just don't think anyone feels like they're the most important person here.
Tass:That that's so true. I mean, again, I've been a few other agencies between BBH and here, and one of the things that struck me when I got here, maybe a few weeks in, I kinda went I hope we can say this, there are no dicks. Like, you just look around and go there's just no these massive egos. They were very talented people, but the ego is in the service of the agency. Right?
Tass:It's like everyone's in it together and that is that really makes a big difference for the culture and and the work.
Jon:And do you do you I mean, what what do you look for when you're hiring somebody? It's funny you mentioned Saatchi and Saatchi because so when I was at university, I I I decided suddenly having done a finance degree. In my final year, I wanna go into marketing and advertising, right, which is a bit of a pivot. And, I went down to the library, and I and I dug out the searching and searching for
Tass:I'm the same.
Jon:Really? Well, parents superpower, actually. I I I love the the hidden kind of finance kind of training. It's comes to you.
Tass:For me, it was, like, Greek parents pushing me into finance. Dad has a finance background. Did 2 internships, wasted 2 summers, thank you, Chase Manhattan, and just couldn't feel it. I thought I was faking it. And I went to one talk.
Tass:It was actually by Jeremy Bullmore, legend, rest in peace. And he said this one thing and he said, we're looking for the kind of people that like reading every section of the newspaper. And for me, it was just that trigger I I tell this story now to young people. I go, look, you've probably not heard of a newspaper, but, you know, bear with me here. That was it.
Tass:I was like, oh, there's a job for people like that? And, like, that is it. That you know, I never had to fake it anymore.
Jon:That's very I I love that approach. It well, when I got to the library, I dug out the search and search application form. It was 25 pages, completely blank. I thought that's so clever. Like, what do you fill it with?
Jon:How do you decide? I love that. And do you fill it all? Do you fill not none of it? What do you I thought it's genius.
Tass:Pictures.
Jon:Yeah. Is it pictures? Is it words? How do you know what they want? You know, how would you find out?
Jon:Oh, that's very interesting.
Brandon:I think, I mean, I think the brief for here when we bring people in, it is it it's quite often, like, if you depending on what the role is you're looking for, you are no longer looking for them to fill a mold. I mean, I think that's something we were all trapped in a decade ago. Now you're looking at that person, what is the very specific thing that you're going to bring here? There is a there is an alert, you know, a filter we put on to be able to, will you work in this culture, which means you cannot have an ego. Like, it doesn't work, and this place will reject you like a bad organ if if you do.
Brandon:It just isn't room. But we really now we look for, like, what is that thing that you're going to bring that no one else has? Because, you know, you just don't wanna hire mediocre. And I think that's the the thing that I would say separate.
Jon:Now talking about hiring, we must get into McDonald's. And let let's start at the pitch. So what was the what what was the brief you guys got given right at the beginning of your relationship when you, you know well, we're talking about the pitch. So how did you how did you convince McDonald's to give you the accounts?
Tass:I mean, the brief was really simple. They a, there was a great document, but in its essence, it just said give us back some swagger. Like, the brand has lost its swagger. So they were very cognizant that, like, they were beaten up. They'd spent too long listening to the haters and forgetting about the fans.
Tass:And it was a long pitch. It was, like, 9 month pitch. And I have to be honest, we, you know, we we openly tell this story. Like, the first half went terribly. Terribly.
Tass:And we had a global CEO presentation, and then we came out when clients fed back and they said, look, we're just a bit worried you don't really understand the brand. We're slightly concerned you don't even like it. And then the bit that really hurt, they went, you know, we we think you might be a bit too New York, bit too Brooklyn. Basically, the work was too edgy, too out there, too weird. And so we were like, okay.
Tass:There you go. You know, we're from the Midwest. We did you know. So we said, alright. You know you know what?
Tass:Whether it's just some pitch theater, you know, at at worst, it would just be some pitch theater. At best, we could actually uncover something. I said to my boss at the time, you know, why don't we just do this road trip? I'm gonna do a road trip from Chicago to Atlanta. We quickly, like, worked out, you know, you could drive in Utah for a week and not leave the state.
Tass:But, like, Chicago to Atlanta gives you the beef eating Midwest, the chicken eating Southeast. You can do 6 states in about 7 days, so it gives you most sort of bang for your butt. And so, we just went out there, me and a a a actually an intern, that's a whole other story, but she joined Janae, and we just hit the road. And we and we started by meeting people in McDonald's, obvious place to start. But we quickly found, you know, if you're in McDonald's for, like, you you wanna be in and out.
Tass:You don't wanna spend an hour and a half talking to us. So we just broadened it out. We we talked to mom's in Walmart. We went to fine dining restaurant, ended up in the kitchens with a chef. My favorite one is we went to church in Alabama.
Tass:We broke into a a rock convention in Louisville and talked to some rockers. But each one started telling me personal anecdotes. Right? The rockers, they're like, of course, McDonald's on the road. You know, I see those arches.
Tass:And we go, oh, of course. The mom in Walmart, her eldest, who was, I think, 8, 9, he quickly said, I don't get Happy Meal anymore. I'm a quarter pounder person. And we go, oh, you like it's like you graduate from the happy meal. So we, you know, we came back, we processed all these things, and we realized, like, all these personal anecdotes, there was so much power in them.
Tass:We then called those fan truths and that literally has been the heart of the strategy. You know, we we wrote a book of them. Literally, here's the book of fan truths. And so when the clients came back maybe a month after the last meeting, we said, look, you know, we took your feedback to heart. You said you don't understand the brand.
Tass:Worried a bit to New York. Okay. Well, look. And we had it up on the wall. We had the book of fan truths.
Tass:And we said, we think this is your brand. These are your fans. These are your customers. Could be product truths about eating a bit of cheese on the wrapper, stealing fries. It could be experience truths, you know, golden lights and midnight salvation when you're drunk and, you know, you see the thing.
Tass:It could be anything. Right? And they looked at it and they went up to it and they and they went, no one's ever done this before, which again just seems so obvious. So I know and then that was it. We we really have not looked back.
Jon:I would have to say, a bit bit most of my career has been client side and showing that you understand the brand. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? I mean, it sounds so basic. I mean, Richard Warren, who came on the podcast, a few months ago, he was, he's done client and agency. So he's been he literally went from being the agency to being the client now, which is quite ironic.
Jon:And he was pitching for Halifax, which is kind of a regional bank in the UK. And he decided to go down to one of their local branches, and I think he kinda presented the creative idea to sort of Brenda, the, you know, the the manager in in Halifax and and filmed her response. And, actually, what he did is he played that back in the pitch meeting and said, that's how your staff feel about the ad we wanna make for you. And as a client, it's really hard to you know, if that's what your, you know, frontline staff think about it, you've nailed it. You know?
Jon:And I think so bringing in the audience, I think it's it's like must be, like, top tip for, you know, winning over a client.
Tass:That that's our number one filter, and we you see this on slides and can and stuff. Do real people care? That's all that matters. You know? And and and, unfortunately, this industry, not gonna go on around.
Tass:Often, you forget the real people. You think about the industry people. You think about, you know, you forget you forget that, like yeah. You you you end up making work for the industry versus work for real. 100 I
Jon:mean, we're not the customer, are we? I mean, that that's what we always forget. You are not the customer. Now so this is am I right with this? About 4 years ago, you win the you win the pitch, and then what happens?
Brandon:Well, I mean, the early wins were good because we we, you know, we put that strategy to use very quickly. The first thing we did was for Quarter Pounder, and I think this was where you wanna get into that idea of that fan, letting the fans do your speaking for you is an element of pride for this brand that I think they weren't showing for a really long time. You know? And I think the first thing we rolled out was this quarter pounder fan club where, like, we have these candles that you light all 5 of them for all 5 ingredients of a quarter pounder, and it smells like a quarter pounder. That takes a lot of, you know, trust in how consumers or fans might react to that, you know.
Brandon:And and it's a it's a kind of a weird way to launch something, you know. It's it's it's a little out of the ordinary, and fans loved it. And I think that reaction really gave us a lot of a lot of, confidence. The second thing that happened in that campaign was that was the first time we used Brian Cox, which was not necessarily our choice to be the voice of the whole brand at the time. That was our first thing out the door.
Brandon:But if you think about where he was at that point in time, that was right as succession, I think, was sort of peaking. If you think about the pride that comes with someone like him saying you know, talking about beef or onions or cheese, he's essentially saying a quarter pound of cheese is is delicious. Fuck off. You know? Like, that's his like, that's where he's coming from, and I think that's a bit of a happy accident.
Brandon:I think his his voice turned into such a confidence for the brand, which is one of the main reasons we ended up saying, okay, he's gonna do absolutely everything. And he has done
Tass:Him saying, Anya, this is one of my favorite. Yeah. That I should add as well. So we told you about fan truths is the is the heart of the creative strategy, but a big part of that is also the voice. We talk a lot about voice at Wyden.
Tass:The voice is fan to fan. So so we say, again at Wieden, your voice is your belief plus your tone. So, the belief that we have is that there is a McDonald's fan in everyone, you know, whether you're a laps fan, a super fan, you know, a new fan. We have the potential to be a fan. And then, the tone is fan to fan.
Tass:Right? One fan speaking to another even when that's the brand speaking we always go is that fan to fan or is it brand to fan speaking down? And what that means is it's just it's so human. It's true. It's personal.
Tass:There's there's a great Wyden quote, you know, the best advertising is a conversation between 2 people overheard by everyone else. And fan to fan is is really the embodiment of that.
Jon:That's beautiful. But Now there was there was a a rather small event, wasn't there, the the the impact to the world just after, you started working, of course, COVID or the pandemic. And, I was looking on the system on database at the scores of your, creative for the last few years. And may it surprise you to find out the best performing, ad that you've made as as voted by the public in terms of their response was actually your COVID response ad. So, I'll I'll give you the scores.
Jon:So we we mark the, every campaign out of 1 to 5 star. 5 star being the best and 5 star putting in the top one percent. Right? And we in fact, we have to go as decimal places because everyone started going, oh, is it a good 5 star or a bad 5 star? You know, am I above that?
Jon:Anyway, so, so we actually take 5.9. So 5.7, which actually was the 6th. We rather crazily during COVID, we tested every ad around the world that had COVID because, we had a bit of spare capacity. That's a good time. No one was advertising or testing their advertising.
Jon:So we had a bit of time on our hands. We thought, Anna, we're gonna test every COVID ad and just write some guidance about how to get it right. And what I love about this campaign is you absolutely nailed it. So as I say, it came 6 out of 600 or so, 5.7 stars, which is brilliant. But what's amazing about it is that because of the brand and because of the fandom you talked about, when you came out with that and I know I know the execution varied based on country and circumstances in, but it almost signaled the start of return to normality, and it also showed a lot of generosity.
Jon:But to explain the campaign for those that might not be familiar with it because it's really quite powerful. Yeah.
Brandon:So that one I mean, that was when we, were giving away meals to first responders. And I think there's this is this is a this is as good of example as anything to talk about the power of the McDonald's system. Because when we talked about doing that, first of all, the capacity that takes to fund it, to to train the crew how to do it, and to to also, do you think about just the process of, someone coming to get a free meal? If how do we prove they're a first responder? I mean, it's a lot a lot that goes into it.
Jon:Time to thought about that, actually. Yeah. Because they
Tass:come in uniforms.
Brandon:And I think but but the most important part of that was we wanted to give it to them in a Happy Meal box because that was just something that was a touch that would make people feel more special. And, again, even that presents complications. Like, adult food is not meant to fit in that. So this we were breaking all kinds of rules, but the system pulled it off. They I mean, what they do once we sell an idea, what they go do after it is 10 x what we what we do on our side.
Brandon:But that was all about trying to figure out what is our purpose, what is our reason for being. And for and for first responders, we are quite often their easiest, quickest thing to get. And so how can we find our way in there to do that again? And, god, I think we gave away 10,000,000 Yeah. 10,000,000 meals.
Brandon:Yeah.
Tass:To your point about the system, I think we had a really small idea initially. Like, let's give them free coffee. And they went, no. No. No.
Tass:That's not enough. Let's give them free meals. We can make it happen. And and and they did it in about 2 or 3 weeks, I think.
Jon:But that but that generosity, that's what we noticed in our in in all our testing is any brand that was showing how much they cared and actually being generous with, you know, the response was amazing. I mean, in the UK, we had queues, long queues. It was on the national news. Like, the queues outside the moment that, you know, at 6 AM on the day it was that McDonald's reopened.
Tass:The Mac is back.
Jon:Yeah, Mac is back. And and there, you know, there were, you know, long queues. You know, people couldn't get out of the car park again. It was just carnage because it kinda signaled that pent up, you know, desire to get back out and, you know, have McDonald's days.
Tass:Ever an advertisement for the Power brand? I mean, that was it.
Brandon:It was. Another part of that too was one of the executions in that campaign was to feature childhood pictures of first responders at McDonald's and then have them flip over to then reveal, you know, their current their current status as first responders. And when you look at that and you're like, how how many of these exist? And we had way more than we could use that just finding no. Not just people, but first responders.
Brandon:You know, as a kid at a birthday party at McDonald's, we found more than we could use. You know? And it's, again, power of the brand.
Jon:Yeah. You're tapping into something very cultural out there that, you know, everyone's got a story, everyone's got a memory, and it's all quite powerful, isn't it? Well, talking about orders and first orders famous orders, I should say. Famous orders. 1st responder famous orders.
Jon:Get it right around. Talk to me about that campaign because that that was quite special, wasn't it? And was it launched around the Super Bowl? Because that that's when I certainly I came across the famous orders.
Brandon:The first iteration of it, I'll do I'll do the Yeah. You do the ad now.
Jon:The first
Brandon:the first iteration of it was the famous trays, which was Super Bowl right before COVID. So the and the I think 2 interesting things came from that. 1, you know, that was Famous Trace. So that was just shots of trays with the names of the people on the meals and you know, but it was the first embodiment of no matter how big or famous you are, everybody has a McDonald's order, which is, you know, a a a truth that has now been taken and and done in a in a number of different ways. But that particular one, the most interesting thing that came out of that was that Kim k dips her nuggets in honey.
Brandon:That's that was all that was as as great as the execution was, that's all the people were talking about. And, that showed a fan that it was as much about the food as it was about the celebrity. It was as much about, you know, fan reactions to that as it was about the execution of the craft. And I think it was not what we thought was going to take it home. You know, we thought we thought it would be much more about the artistry or the music or anything like that, but that became what it was.
Brandon:And I think we took away that there is a fan interest in this idea and that whatever we put out and this will happen in many of our subsequent campaigns, it won't be the thing you think they're going to do. They're gonna take something else. But it quickly moved into something bigger in 2020. I
Jon:thought the genius thing about the idea there is, like, you know, before, you know, McDonald's might advertise the Happy Meal or the new salad or something like that. And then but you're limiting the potential
Brandon:of it. Right? And then you
Jon:can go where it's advertise the Big Mac or co founder, and that broadens it. But, actually, if you're advertising what's your McDonald's, like, that's everybody.
Brandon:Right? There is.
Jon:So everyone's got their Yeah. Got their fame.
Tass:One of our main clients, JJ Heelan, she likes to say, the great thing about the Travis Scott meal, and I'll get on to this, is that it's on the menu the whole time. It's not like it was there for a month and it's gone. Like, if you wanna go and eat like Travis, you can do that or like Kim or whatever. You can go there now and get a quarter pounder and bacon and so so I so I've talked about Travis. I'll introduce him more properly.
Tass:So so as as Brandon said, you know, that was February. We did the Super Bowl spot. Then, like you said, the world went kinda nuts. We ran lots of messaging about we blew up the calendar for for a start. So everything we had planned or they had planned, this was this was only about 6 months in for us, we got rid of.
Tass:And it was messaging, you know, we're open, the drive thrus are open, the lobbies are closed, stay safe. Then we started talking about the food a bit more. And then the CEO came with a brief and said look, in q 4 this year I wanna I wanna spend invest in marketing and here's your brief. What would you do? We want a brand platform, we wanna we wanna drive sales.
Tass:We'd build the brand, but also drive traffic. And we came back you know, when you have such an open brief, we came back with a lot of wild ideas. That's that's what happens at wider. You know, we we had introducing crazy products, the, big mac muffin, which is 2, McMuffins stacked together. We were gonna do, what's that thing
Jon:in the show?
Tass:We were gonna do a Mount Rushmore of of McDonald's products. Anyway, in the end, after a few rounds of feedback going, I think this isn't it, we went back to Super Bowl idea and we said, hang on a minute. What if we just took the order, one of those many orders, and just launched it for real? And said, you can come in and get the Kim k, the, you know, the Kanye, the whatever. And they loved that idea.
Tass:And then we worked out who's the right person and Travis Scott, you know, bubbled up, in terms of appeal to our target, in terms of just general dynamism. But but most importantly, just love for the brand. Right? Like, we don't work with any talent that doesn't have, you know and if you're a celebrity, that love for the brand should really exist out in the world. Right?
Tass:If you haven't been snapped at the drive through with a, you know, getting McDonald's or with a bag of fries or with a Coke, then then you're probably not a fan because the number of photos exist of celebrities. And so and then what working with a fan means is they really care about it. They're not just, you know, they're not just shilling the product. They have their own personal memories and for Travis it was like I've got the same order since back in Houston, you know. And then he wants to design design merch that, like, his experience, his interpretation, his memory.
Tass:And then you're you're on a winner, basically.
Jon:It's a bit like the old advice. It's much better to let someone else tell your story than you tell it. I love it. You know, that that's a really good example of that, isn't it? That's very, very powerful.
Jon:So how did the campaign do? I mean, obviously, you know, sounds it it it's exciting. You got you got a lot of celebrities involved. How's it actually had it perform?
Tass:It went nuts. So so the the the when we launched Travis Scott Mill in October 2020, remember, it was still, you know, COVID was everywhere. It it's almost it's almost like people have been starved of a of an experience out in the real one of my planners said it was like a concert that you could you know, it was the closest you get to a concert at the time. People start framing the receipts, the Travis Scott meal. That's like framing the ticket stub to your to to your experience.
Tass:And, yeah, we had lines around the block. We had that was our version of lines around the block. We had you know, we'd said in the ad Travis had said, Tom Cactus Jack sent you. That's his nickname. And then, you know, the young people start filming TikToks and they just innovated on that.
Tass:They start playing his song, turning up, playing a song. Or once it became a snowball of its own, they said, you know why I'm here. And then that became the call to, you know, the call to action. McDonald's sent a training to the, to their staff saying, if someone turns up, either plays music or says, you know why I'm here, you know it's Travis Scott. And they're like, we don't need the training.
Tass:We know why they're here. And yeah. I mean, they sold out. They sold out of beef. They sold out of of Sprite and you know, they sold out of lettuce.
Tass:Like, it just it it was and when that that's when we saw the real power of this brand.
Brandon:I I think one other thing that came from that was one of the one of the things we did that we had first time we had done that for a campaign was we made t shirts for the crew. So every crew member got a Travis Scott meal t shirt. Vicky Chancellor, who was the head of the owner operators at Optanad, she told us the story. It's one of the first times she had seen her crew wear their uniform home. You know, normally, they change before they they head out because there was a pride.
Brandon:Again, it was that that idea of pride. It it was much as we're talking about it for fans of the brand, for the crew as well. That was that was something they had not seen before, which, again, started just we just started to learn more and more about what will work, and that was the thing.
Jon:Interesting thing sometimes we forget, don't we, in our kind of roles is that, actually, you've got a number of stakeholders. You've got the franchisees who whose businesses are affected by, in this case, COVID and the recovery. Right? You got the staff again, you know, and they want they wanna feel pride in what's going on. So it engaged everybody.
Brandon:100%.
Jon:I mean, we often talk, don't we, kind of in in our kind of circles about ideas that affect culture. But this is actually an idea, isn't it? You know, campaign that actually has got into culture and both, you know, reflected back by using the celebrities you've used and really made a difference in that.
Brandon:When we saw a video of someone stealing the point of sale poster, that was that was not something that That should
Jon:be a KPI debrief. Right?
Brandon:This is so good.
Tass:No. They We have those the
Brandon:menu cards.
Tass:There's there's another one that, you know, again, when we write effectiveness papers and stuff, you know, yeah, you can have the brand tracking, but more important for us is is all that reaction within the fans. Fan art is is one that we saw with Travis and then we've kept seeing repeated. Like, the idea that young people just Google Travis Scott fan art on online. The idea that young person can spend their day designing something that is basically branded art. It's like a unofficial advert for McDonald's.
Tass:That's because you've touched something there that they really care about.
Jon:Now you talked about affectionates. I think you won FEES and you, walks around the year as well. What were the, you know, financial results for McDonald's off the back of the campaign?
Tass:Gotta be careful what we can publicly talk about.
Jon:What's in the public domain that you can
Tass:talk about? I'm I'm trying to remember. It's public. The the the public domain is that the the famous orders campaign so we did 4 out 3 others, right, within 12 months. The BTS, we did Travis, we did J Balvin, and we did Saweetie.
Tass:Right? Those combined drove incremental sales of $283,000,000. Right? So that is the the headline result. In terms of Romy, they all had about 8 times the average Romy.
Tass:So it was you know, I think those are both public names.
Jon:Reason good days work then.
Tass:Yeah. Yeah.
Jon:Well done. Now one of the other things that struck me about the campaign as well, we talk about long and the short of it, don't we? And how they do different things. But I guess a really good example of where investing in fame building advertising actually can have an immediate response as well. Because from what I understand from the case studies that the response pretty much happened from day 1 of the campaign, didn't it, and continued.
Jon:So it's a good example of being able to do both at the same time.
Tass:That was something we talked about in the brief. So when the client said, we need it to build the brand long term and drive sales short term, I went, look, I'm a big, field and BNA guy. I go, look, guys, you know, that's asking a lot. Right? We either do 1 or the other.
Tass:And they're like, look, we we have to do both. CEO wants it. But we've realized, you know what? In a at least with a category like QSR, you probably can do both. You know, every that is now the bar we set ourselves.
Tass:Because it is, you know, it's a low cost, high frequency, low low effort thing to purchase. It's not like a car. I wouldn't put brand and sales every time in the car. And so, we you can do it, you know, with the right idea, and so everything we do has brand and sales in it. Because even something that's a very transactional acquisition based campaign, you can still have the brand in there.
Tass:And so that's that's how we see it.
Jon:1 of the 1 of the, if I can say it, it's one of the surprise campaigns we I saw from you guys is as featured in. It was one of those ones that just took off, and everyone was talking about. And to describe well, tell me where the idea came from, and then describe it for anyone listening that can't watch. You know, what what what the, what that campaign is all about?
Brandon:Well, so that one so that one began with if thinking about all of the different places that McDonald's has organically showed up in films and TV shows all, you know, since, I guess, we started in the in the eighties. We started looking for them. And so, you know, the the idea for that is to think about, you know, this is what has McDonald's role in all of those films be? Like, what is the connective tissue? You know, why why is something like that important?
Brandon:Because, really, the execution, the film, the craft of it is really just figuring out the right way to see you know, string them all together. But the I think the idea quickly became, okay, so why why would people care about that? But really, they it it builds it builds from the same truth of no matter how big or famous you are. It builds from that same truth that, you know, what McDonald's role in that. It's a uniter.
Brandon:It's a it's a it's something that can make us all feel down to earth no matter what type of role it's being used. So we pulled that all the way through, from from the films, from the TV shows, coming to America, The Office, things like that. But then all the way through even to the packaging where the McDonald's bag that had been featured in different things, that was the hero. The Big Mac, that was the hero. So it was just as important as any star in that movie, similar to the way Travis and the brand, just as important.
Brandon:So it was just it was bringing that insight to life in a way that we had already organically done, not placing ourselves, all done just by the purpose of the of the filmmaker.
Jon:I mean, it tested on the system database insanely well. Everyone knew it was McDonald's. I think it's not 98% or something like that. I think that's another 5 star ad. And what it did, I thought very cleverly, was that you kind of you know, it didn't matter what kind of films you're into.
Jon:There's something for everyone, isn't it? It's you know, in there, the celebrities. And loads of the feedback we got on the reports was, oh, I never realized McDonald's was in so many kind of famous movies. So it kind of did a bit a bit of social proof, didn't it, in terms of, you know, showing the kind of company you keep?
Tass:I I like the comment. I I was pleased you guys posted it. I'm pleased at school well, and and I like that comment. I was gonna say something about fame. I mean, I I would say if you look back on the last 4 years, the 2 key ingredients to this story, this successful story, is fame and memories.
Tass:Right? Memories is is at the heart of the of the of fan truths. Right? You're tapping into existing memories and you're creating new ones. Right?
Tass:And and you're building those memory structures. So, we all know that's how advertising works. And then fame as again, IPA fans, emotion advertising is more powerful than rational advertising. Fame work has an even higher multiplier. So that fame multiplier again, we're privileged.
Tass:We work with McDonald's. Right? It's very hard to get, you know, your your your small sort of detergent brand to to to occupy the same space in people's heads. But fame is is part of that. Right?
Tass:Fame, finding the right ways to insert the brand in culture that then means that people wanna talk about you, wanna post you, wanna wear your merch, wanna create fan art, wanna take your packaging. The BTS one, the bag was like a textile and that and that was a global one. People all over the world were making, like, sneakers out of it, were making, stationery. This this one lady made a bra. I don't know if I can say that, but and, you know, a nugget holder.
Tass:But, like, that's fame. Right? That's when and and you see the the multiplier. So, again, they have an amazing Romy model. All clients should have a real robust Romy and effectiveness model.
Tass:But they can track the percentage of sales from earned media. And we saw it with Travis. Travis was 10 times the average. That's free. That's free, Romy.
Tass:That's that's kinda infinite because the cost was 0. All those famous orders campaigns, Cactus Plant, Grimace, which recently had 20 times the and that's when you know that, again, fame is is the multiplier.
Jon:I mean, you talked about, you know, you might be a small detergent brand versus a McDonald's brand, but I think what you've done very cleverly is understood what the brand means to people. And I think that's the power. So in a way, it doesn't matter what brand you're working on, but you've gone it you've gone to really understand it and understand the role it has in culture and how to unlock that, and you've unlocked in a very consistent way.
Brandon:You know, and there's a risk in that too because, like, when you understand what this brand, especially as we are putting so much of it in the hands of fans, the way that these campaigns come to life, one of the things you are risking in much the same way you saw with Kim k and all that kind of stuff, we you are not certain what is the thing they will grab onto. But Grimace, for example, like, you know, the idea that that campaign, you know, that that that the TikTok trend was what drove so much of its relevance. You know, that wasn't necessarily part of the plan, but, like, a lot of the ingredients were there to give fans that control because so much of what we say is that you know I give jp, John Petty a lot of credit for putting the words to this which is our work You'd have to let them find fans find themselves in the work. You have to let them find a way to make it their own, and any interaction is, you know, additive. You know, any interaction, a share, a repost, or whatever, anything is additive to it.
Brandon:And I think that is that model that we put a lot of the ingredients out there and see where they'll go with it, but that's because we have the trust in the fans. And some of them go better than others, but yeah.
Jon:It's quite an interesting question actually from a client point of view because if you if you're presenting, you know, presenting a finished film, right? As a client, I can go, okay, that that's brand guidelines and, you know, no one's gonna complain about it, right? But what you've created there, you're kind of letting go of your control of the brand, aren't you? And letting the fans, you know, basically You've
Tass:put your finger on it. Exactly. I I was just I don't think we've said share the pen yet. It's something we usually say pretty early. But that's, again, from Travis, from everything we've done, is relinquishing some of that creative control.
Tass:And that's that's the brand doing it. The clients have to be comfortable doing that as well, you know, and and they have been comfortable because they've been amazing clients. So it's there's a great example, this isn't visual, maybe we'll send you the the slide. There's the merch we designed when we did Travis, you know, and our designers are amazing designers, but they followed the brand guidelines to the letter, we showed it to him and he went, no, that's lame. I'm not gonna wear that.
Tass:No one's gonna wear that. This I've done some designs of our own and they broke all the guidelines. The logo used, the colors, the We showed it to the clients and they went, oh, we can't do that. We don't no. I know.
Tass:This is asking a lot. But but you know what? They saw the value in it. They saw the the the the authenticity and and they got it through legal and those designs went out and they sold out instantly and they were reselling straight away. And so and that again with every campaign it's like how can you relinquish some creative control?
Tass:How can as as Pratt was saying, how can you bring people into it? Don't don't agonize over every detail. Just put those ingredients out there and then hope that some of them, you know, take off.
Jon:Well, spit out. I mean, that that's feedback for clients as well, isn't it? To relinquish a little bit of control and give them all
Brandon:the credit for for for figuring out a way to make that happen.
Jon:So how so what was your advice to a client be? Or or can you describe that what works about the relationship you have with McDonald's that allows this kind of creativity to flourish and
Brandon:It it all goes back to the way we found ourselves at the table during COVID. You know? Because, you know, we we established this relationship at a time when no one knew what to do. And, you know, quite often, I think brands bring Wyden in to solve all their problems, and we can act like we know how to do that some of the time. But we didn't
Jon:know how to solve all these problems. So I think we learned very early on to be really honest
Brandon:with each other about what we knew, what we don't know, but it created a culture with each other about what we knew what we don't know but it created a culture of saying yes that they started very early on and, they walk in to a to a meeting with us and and want to make something and want to do something. It's not about if. And I think when you start to kind of when you approach it that way together, the level of trust of not thinking, like, are they gonna like it or they're not gonna like it? The trust is there. The action is there.
Brandon:Like, they they've proven that time and time again. So it's like we we we just hold nothing back, and it it's a very How
Jon:do you sustain it? Because I know I know I I've been situations where I've I've been in that place where, you know actually actually, it's interesting you talk about crisis because I think probably the the closest I've been to what you described is when I was on Lucas A with the Grey team, we were in a complete crisis. And and it meant we had to get out there, get in a galley office, and get down to meet our consumers and really understand it, get into what's the brand mean. And I remember when the ECD pitched the creative platform, it was just it was just on a Post it note. It wasn't some big song and dance.
Jon:But because we had spent so much time together, like, I knew it. And when I when I saw it posting that, I'm like, that's it. But that's so you have to really work at that and protect it, don't you? Because that that equally can start so you can start to lose that quite quickly if you're not. One of
Brandon:the I think one of the big misconceptions too about Wyden, and I find this all the time when people show up on day 1. They think that they're going to be issued weapons to go fight for the work and, at all costs, defend the work, and it's actually it's a complete misconception. It's it's quite the opposite. We care so much that our partners like it. They we really want them to like it.
Brandon:All we want for them is to see what we see in the work. It's not about to get them to buy it or to or to make it. It's to bid them to see what we see. And I think when that gets proven over time, you don't ever find yourselves in a position where you're making them do anything they don't wanna do. I think they've they've trusted us in some times where they were uncertain, but I think we've shown enough times that we will we want them to like it, and we want them to be comfortable with it, that we've had to only push them a handful of times on things, you know.
Tass:It's more like hand holding. Sometimes we need to hold hands and go into this together. That scares us a bit, but it's never like trying to force something that that they don't want. And and now, I mean, again, it helps when you get some wins under the belt. The the CEO in the US, when we see him, he goes, guys, you haven't scared me enough.
Tass:Scare me more. I wanna be scared. And and, like, that's a great brief. Yeah. So, again, that comes with trust when you're taking these leaps together.
Jon:And, you know, we talk about saying yes together as well and and failing hard together as well. So, like, has that have you, you know, have you ever been in a position where it's not worked? I mean, we're talking about the stuff that's working. Right? But what happens when it doesn't work?
Tass:There's an example. There was some work that we had before COVID happened. Right? That was planned for and the first campaign Pratt described, QPC, went great. But the second one was a Big Mac campaign that the world would never see, don't ask for it.
Tass:But the clients again, you know, I think it helped. JJ had worked with Wyden for 10 years. There was a trust there. So she came into NT and said, you know what? This big map, we don't think it's right.
Tass:And we went, you know what? We also we think you're right too. And we had a very honest conversation. It was 2 days before the world blew up, like March 2020. And we said, look, here's why we think some of these, Karl, our global CEO, talks about, the first pancakes.
Tass:The first pancakes you make are never the best ones. And and we think, you know, as we try to find the voice, we made some bad pancakes. Now, luckily for us, obviously not luck because the world was went into COVID, that work never saw the light of day. And so we were able to correct those mistakes together. And by the time we started coming out of COVID, we we we'd found the voice.
Tass:We were hitting the right notes. We were doing the the work you mentioned. We did Travis. And so I think we'd never really looked back.
Brandon:But there's and there's 2 versions of that conversation. There's the one where you get defensive Yeah. Because we presented it. We sold it. We made it.
Brandon:We paid for it Where, you know, where you defend it, or there was the one where you're like, shit. You're right. And it's not dissimilar to when in the early days when they said, we're not sure if you like the brand. Okay. We all love the brand, but you don't feel it.
Brandon:So why argue?
Jon:It's it's a tricky I mean, as as as most of my career has been client side. It's a tricky moment that because, you know, you you you've put the brief in. It's 2 or 3 weeks, and, you know, and as an agency, you've put love into it. You're really committed to it, and you've got a vision for where it's gonna go. As a client, you see it for the first time, you just go, I I don't feel this.
Jon:And you go, how do I break the news? You know, it's tough one. It's a tough one, though. You know?
Tass:That is a key part of the culture here as well. You know, we talked about it at the start. It's the lack of fear. It's creating a culture where it's the fail harder that we have on a wall in Portland. And so, again, when they said we don't think it's good the tendency isn't to defend it or you're gonna get fired, the tendency is to go yeah, you're right.
Tass:We can be honest about it. We're not worried we're gonna lose the account, you know. There's no one above us in a holding company going, say yes at every time, defend the word, don't, you know. And that leads to this kind of relationship and this kind of And you
Jon:guys are prepared to go again, right, as well and just keep going until the until you get there.
Brandon:You get a lot of at bats with McDonald's. You'll you'll you'll have another something else right around the corner. Yeah. Yeah. Because there must must be a
Jon:lot going on. So what you know, so if you're a client listening in, what would your advice be to you know, so you've you've made some of the best work out there and, you know, had a really successful run. And a lot of people are looking, gosh. I wanna do what they're doing kind of thing. So what would your advice be to a client that's sitting there going, I wanna create the environment for that kind of stuff to happen?
Brandon:I mean, one of the we get that question a lot actually from from other brands. And I think, one of the biggest things is actually be prepared to make the change. And and as we talked about, like, we we blew our calendar to pieces. And much like working with an electrician, you asked, like, well, I got this hole in the wall. Do you want me to fix this there?
Brandon:And it was at that point where we said, like, let's build this calendar back with the brand in mind versus everything else doing it the way we've done it for years years years. And that took a lot of courage for a system like McDonald's to say, yes. Let's reorganize all of this I mean it takes if you want things to be differently you have to really be willing to make some of those changes that happen outside of your department in completely different rooms that you're not in you know you've got the right people to make those decisions for you and you got you got to really do it and then I do say, like, the the trust that you build with your agency, you can't just say trust your agency because it's not always the case that that that they've got your best interest at heart, but you can build that trust and find little ways to find one way to win and then go from there.
Jon:It's funny, actually, reminds I think from, you know, from from a client's point of view, it's helped me sell the work as well. Because because behind every client, there is a big organization. There's complexity. There's politics. There's operational things to consider.
Jon:And I love some of the how you've told the stories about how the, you know, franchisees or the fans really bought into it or the, you know, the staff in the, you know, in the restaurants. That is so key. And and I think so if you can think through your creative and how that rolls out in an organization, and everyone's gonna be part of it, I think that's, you know, a big part of it, isn't it? So it's not just on the sat in isolation.
Tass:I I was just gonna add as well, you know, to your question. I you're a client. What do you do? Don't feel that, you know, if you choose the agency with the most interesting creative idea, with the brave ideas, don't feel, okay, I've hired them. I've done the brave bit.
Tass:Now, okay, hey, agency. Here are my processes. I'm gonna squeeze your work through everything that everyone else has ever done. I'm gonna test it to death. I'm gonna, you know, we are difficult to work with.
Tass:Oh, I probably can't say that. But, like, because we will go out there and go, okay, you need to do this testing, but is it the right testing? Are you are you optimizing the work or you letting the testing make the decision for you? So use system 1. There you go.
Tass:Shameless plug. But, like, that's the thing, you know, I've always liked working with you guys because it's about emotion. It's about it's about, you know, getting versus some rational, you know, metrics. And therefore, you've got to be that client that is prepared to to to to do stuff that makes you feel uncomfortable, and and it makes the whole difference.
Jon:It's funny. Thank you for the call out, by the way. But, we often say, you know, we're not here to mark your homework. We're here to get good ideas made. And actually, it's really interesting that I I mean, I've actually learned in the job that I do, I'm not actually selling advertising testing.
Jon:What I'm selling is confidence, and it's a confidence to get the stakeholders to buy into your idea. Because often I remember when I was back in client side roles, we'd have a meeting like this, and I would be so inspired by the idea. And I'm relatively creative as clients go, so I could imagine, you know, how how exciting it could be. And then the next day in the cold light of day in an industrial park on the edge of London in, you know, on some cold frosted December morning, and they're presenting the idea to the board. Okay.
Jon:This doesn't sound quite as exciting as I you know? And they're they're not getting this. They're looking at me and go, you wanna do what? You know? And and actually what I realized with the system one test is it wasn't about the score per se.
Jon:It was about giving the confidence to much more rational organization that are used to saying, you know, how much do we make yesterday? How much do we settle tomorrow? And, you know, what's our forecasting like? It gives you the rational case for emotion effectively, you know. So once I worked that out, I went, yeah, I can see that now.
Tass:Bring bring your agency in as well. Again, so many clients will be like your presenter marketing, and then they'll do the job with the CEO, come back and go, no. He didn't he didn't like or she didn't like it. But we get to present pretty soon. We were presenting to the US CEO, global CEO.
Tass:It's like, get them to present their ideas. You know, why are you trying to do that bit of the job?
Jon:And also, as well, when you're in that situation, you can also find out why have you reacted the way you so if you took presented to the CEO, what why have you reacted in that way? What is it? And you can work out whether it's just a an executional response or whether actually this strategy doesn't work. You know, you can unpick it and, much more easy rather than translate it through the, you know, through the CMO. Yeah.
Jon:That's very good. Well, we're running out of time, but just maybe to end with, is there anything you can share about what might be coming up next?
Brandon:The only thing I will say is, we were we we are really far out on this brand. We get way ahead of it. And so we have I I predict the stuff that we've already got on the calendar for next year will be the cool the coolest stuff we've done to date. And I think it has everything to do with everything we've talked about about that trust, that rhythm, and these, you know, we're selling you know, we we sell an idea internally with one slide, and then we add you know, and and now we're bringing it to the brand, and they're like, yeah. Let's just find the right place for it.
Brandon:So, next year is gonna be a really fun one.
Jon:Watch the space. Well, 2024's gonna be exciting.
Tass:And I was gonna say, you know, we talk a lot about culture and subcultures. So I can say without revealing too much, you know, we played in certain spaces, streetwear, music. You're gonna see some new ones next year as well. I think that's enough to say.
Jon:Good seeds. Well, that's a brilliant place to end. It was thank you.
Brandon:Off now.
Jon:Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon:You heard
Jon:it here first. Gentlemen, thank you so much.
Tass:Thank you, John. Thanks for listening to
Jon:the Unsensors CMO. I hope you enjoyed that. If you never want to miss an episode again, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're watching on YouTube, click on subscribe there too. If you want to follow me, you can do.
Jon:I'm over at John Evans on LinkedIn, or find me on Twitter as well at uncensoredcmo. Thanks again for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.
