McDonald’s Canada is inviting consumers to show their love for fries with a new limited edition collection of slogan T-shirts.
Created for “National French Fry Day” on Wednesday, the black and yellow shirts feature slogans like “OK, but first fries” and “Fries and shine.” Just 2,000 of the T-shirts were created and offered up free of charge via the QSR’s social media accounts. By 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday all of the T-shirts had been claimed.
The campaign was conceived and created by Tribal Worldwide Canada.
McDonald’s boosted awareness for the T-shirt collection by sending shirts to influencers ahead of the promotion. The brand worked with 10 influencers from across Canada, including blogger Alicia Winnett and YouTubers Matthew Santoro and Joey Kidney. The QSR also tapped several influencers to host meetups at McDonald’s locations, in addition to giveaways and other street-level and in-store promotions.
Weber Shandwick and Studio 71 handled influencer relations for the initiative.
The T-shirts were just one of the brand’s promotions to celebrate Fry Day. The company purchased the Promoted Trend for Canada on Twitter to boost #NationalFrenchFryDay and shot a live Periscope of an employee working at a fry station in the kitchen of one of its restaurants.
Rashel Hariri, digital social engagement manager at McDonald’s Canada, told Marketing live streaming is one of several new tactics the brand is experimenting with as it continues to carve out its digital presence.
“Testing new programs in this space is a great way for us to innovate and discover what resonates with our fans and followers,” she said. “We planned various tactics for today that will reignite the love millennials have for McDonald’s and more specifically ‘fry culture.'”
“The intent of the livestream, which also streamed from Facebook Live, was to focus on our delicious, 100% Canadian, golden fries and build conversation and appetite for our food during peak lunch hours.”
LIVE on #Periscope: McDonald’s fries in all their golden glory. Happy #NationalFrenchFryDay!#FryLove https://t.co/QpnXojzv0U
— McDonald’s Canada (@McD_Canada) July 13, 2016
The activation marked the first promoted Periscope sold by Twitter Canada. Within the first hour, the broadcast had over 1,200 views, 75 retweets and 160 likes on Twitter. By mid-day, the live feed had collected more than 52,000 views.
OMD handled the media buy.
Rounding out the promotion is a piece of branded content that ran on Buzzfeed, “14 things only fry lovers will understand.”
McDonald’s wasn’t the only restaurant running Fry Day promotions. New York Fries was also offering Canadians a free small fries on Wednesday in exchange for joining its “Fry Society” loyalty program. In the U.S. Carl’s Jr., Burger King and IHOP all ran similarly-themed promotions.
