Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

Objective & Challenge
Market growth has always been a priority for McDonald’s and that means we must identify new market opportunities to grow the business. Recruiting new customers and establishing a presence among new segments were critical parts of the strategy. While looking out for opportunities, we found the e-Sports industry has been significantly growing in Malaysia be it a computer, mobile or console gaming. Thanks to the pandemic, surely have fueled the category growth exponentially. Malaysian e-Sports fans are generally millennials belonging to the higher income segment, 9 out of 10 of them are also gamers themselves and they have a competitive spirit. Our idea is to bridge McDelivery with e-sports fandom to connect them emotionally and position McDelivery as the preferred F&B for gamers. 84% of gamers in APAC admit to snacking whilst gaming with salty snacks and sodas being the preferred choice of F&B. Layered with the need for speed and convenience, this presents the perfect opportunity for McDelivery to position itself as the food partner for gaming fans. Our business KPI is to ensure through the initiatives we help to drive incremental traffic and transactions while assessing brand lift for McDelivery.

Insight & Strategy
The No. 1 mobile phone MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) is Mobile Legends (MLBB) with 6.2 million monthly active users. It’s a highly engaged and lucrative market, with players spending RM358 mil on the game since 2016. In line with this, McDelivery forged a global-first partnership with Google and Moonton’s Mobile Legends Bang Bang (MLBB) to tap into the esports space where the brand capitalizes on the growth of Malaysian gamers and Mobile Legends fans. The reason why we have partnered with Mobile Legends is that we saw a shift to a mobile-first gaming habit where mobile devices became the highest used for gaming in Malaysia. McDelivery’s strategic intent is to build affinity with digital natives’ mobile gamers and leverage the partnership to stamp brand presence on the world’s biggest gaming platform. The big idea is to seed McDelivery into gamers’ lifestyles and create fulfilment for the hungry gamers, considering their gaming habits and competitiveness. By seamlessly having McDelivery messaging and Mobile Legends element in our communications, we aimed to increase brand awareness and build a deeper connection with the gaming audiences through their language.

Execution
We integrated Mobile Legends’ intellectual properties and elements such as characters, logo, language and game items into our brand’s creatives and messaging, streamlining them to have a consistent template then we distribute the gamer-friendly content across digital platforms to create noise. The platforms involved are YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and owned digital assets such as website, EDM and App – covering all the digital touchpoints accessible by consumers from owned and paid media. During Phase 1, we highlighted the partnership between Mobile Legends and McDelivery to key gamer-related sites to garner earned media. To engage with the viewers, McDelivery communications were embedded with free in-game items giveaways such as diamonds, and free skins through contests. In addition, we deployed strategic tactical promotion of free 6pcs McNuggets to close the loop. In Phase 2, we further showcased the collaboration through the 3 days of Grand Finals, having Masthead and in-game brand integration to maximize branding visibility while constantly highlighting the tactical promotion. Above all, dominance was executed throughout the campaign with 100% SOV roadblock on Mobile Legends YouTube Channels, contest and promotion shoutouts on live streams and in-events mentions. This is to ensure viewers have a head-to-tail brand exposure experience when they want to engage with the Mobile Legends game or watch online matches.

Effectiveness
1. Results were fantastic and we successfully helped the business to grow its revenue by RM 2.48Mil during the campaign period, with 5x media ROAS! 2. The average order value has almost doubled from a yearly avg RM45 to RM76 on campaign month. 3. The business recorded the highest new customer sales in campaign months throughout 2021. 4. Besides, media impact we observed that website traffic has increased by +30% (verified by Google Analytics), search likelihood for McDelivery increased by +35% for those who saw our ads (verified by Google’s brand lift study) and cost per acquisition reduced by -43% (verified through campaign performance) – every metrics are comparing with a previous month where there is no sponsorship engagement 5. From organic post engagement, we saw 2x more organic media reach and video views, 6x more organic comments vs other McDonald’s core campaigns 6. Thumbnail integration on YouTube has garnered 21.4M organic impressions over 3 days. 7. Overall, it was a ‘GG – good game’ for the brand and the partnership that not only drives business results but also establishes a stronger brand presence in the e-sports market.