Insight
The Mayweather Pacquiao fight was most anticipated global sporting event of 2015. Manny Pacquiao is widely acknowledged as the ‘Filipino’s Pride.’ He is considered as a boxing icon where Filipinos around the world unite to cheer his every match.
With the ‘Fight of the Century’ sure to generate a high volume of Twitter conversations, McDonald’s set to participate real-time to build relevance for the brand, but more importantly, leverage these conversations to drive sales for McDonald’s desserts considering it was also the height of summer during the event.
Strategy
Twitter conversations always peak leading up to and during a Pacquiao fight, with the nation fully engaged with their champion. Most brands know this and make it a point to have some type of content that shows their support for Manny, but they are usually normal ‘go Manny’ posts that achieve around the same level of engagement, save for brands that he endorses which sometimes have exclusive content.
McDonald’s did not have the benefit of having Pacquiao as an endorser for the brand, let alone compete with all the TV commercials and billboards sponsoring brands have put up. Knowing the role Twitter will play during this, McDonald’s utilised live marketing as a way to stand out from other brands.
The brand leveraged both the event and the time of the year (summer) to push its dessert line, without having to push the product too hard. McDonald’s planned for content pre, during, and post the fight, centred on a key line that married both events:
A few days before the event, McDonald’s introduced the concept that captured both events in one call to action – one that signified rallying for Pacquiao, while at the same time putting in context a reason to consume McDonald’s desserts. This was first released online, latching on to the relevant hashtag for the MayPac event to drive content discovery.
For the day of the event, knowing that real-time content works best on Twitter when it is agile to the situation, the team planned out different scenarios that could possibly happen to anticipate participation ways-in during the match.
McDonald’s closed the participation circle by planning both win and lose content ideas. By the time the closing content was released, McDonald’s had integrated itself in the event better than any other brand.
Execution
McDonald’s looked no further than the rising temperatures to find a brilliant workaround to this problem. The month of May being the height of summer, the scorching heat was used as the creative handle for a campaign centered around the clever word play – “Beat the May Weather.”
McDonald’s unleashed this content on April 30, the very peak of the pre-fight buzz. Less than 24 hours after its first retweet, “Beat the May Weather” had become the country’s battlecry for #MayPac --- rallying for Manny Pacquiao, the nation’s pride.
On the day of the big fight, a command center monitored the fight as it unfolded on TV and on Twitter. “Beat the May Weather” content arising from scenario planning followed the fight through each round, culminating with the heartbreaking “lose” copy, which consoled a grieving nation within five minutes of Pacquiao’s loss.
Results
‘Beat the Mayweather’ campaign achieved astounding social media success; its remarkable results even translating to increased sales.
During its 4-day run, “Beat the May Weather” fever swept the country, with conversations even spilling over to foreign press.
• Top trending topic on Twitter Philippines
• Over 24.6 million impressions
• Php 23.7 million ($512,199) earned in media value
• Revived organic engagement for @McDo_PH, the brands highest ever during this time.