The Mac is back: how Wieden+Kennedy gave McDonald's its swagger

0:06Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. Now, one team absolutely on fire at the moment is the Widen & 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 Widen & 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. This is a really cool episode. There's so much to learn from it, and I know you're going to love it.

0:41Welcome to the show, gents. Thanks, John. Thank you very much. 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? I did. Yeah, I spent the first nine years there. How does BBH compare to Wyden and Kennedy? Because all the debate about, you know, London agencies versus New York agencies, what can you tell us about the difference between the two? You know, they were founded in the same year. So 1982, both stayed independent for a good 30 years until those guys sold out.

1:16But, you know, and they put creativity at the top, right? I think, what was that first BBH belief? The power of creativity and the primacy of the idea. So it's all about ideas. You know, it's where I learned my love for the creative product, for interesting people. But there is a difference in cultures. You know, I think at BBH, they talked about processes that liberate creativity. And here we're a bit scared of process. We're scared the 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?

1:53We go in there, we're like McKinsey, right? Don't be, you know, silly and stuff. here it's like be stupid ship of fools i remember doing the first pitch i did the ford pitch and i turned up wearing a blazer and they laughed at me they went oh tass got blazer on look at that and they were all in hoodies and nikes i went oh of course because i think you were saying this with hegg with hegg ironically the other day 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, go in there looking like that thing that they're scared of, but need.

2:27And that, you know, and that's, that's really the difference. I would say the big difference. Yeah. I love it as a client. I love going to agencies because you can kind of dress like them. So go, Oh, I'm going to be like the agency for the day rather than have to sort of wear the suit to turn up to the, you know, the meeting with your customer sort of thing. Now we're going to be talking in a minute about famous orders. So give me your, what would your order be for McDonald's? Always been a Big Mac guy. 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 eight and she just wants to shut me up.

2:59That's for me, my order. 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 now I've got daughters, they're teenagers. That's what they would have. And it just triggers that beautiful memory. That's our whole strategy. I'm sure we'll get into that. Okay. Well, let me go to Brandon. 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? Well, I'm going to sound like a caveman after that speech from Tess. I mean, I started at Saatchi right out of college.

3:30And 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 make it two years, a quarter of you won't make it five. that was a um it was interesting though like you know we work on procter and gamble general mills j &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 works but i think you know 90 of account people their story is kind of the same whether you're running a company or you know still just five years in the business the thing that was unique for me there that i think came naturally was working and relating with creatives 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.

4:12And I would kind of come down being like, yeah, sorted 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 I think that kind of idea pushed me. Once I learned something about the business after being there for a few years, you start to get obsessed with, so how can I find my way into Widening Kennedy? Which took me a long time to do. 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.

4:44But 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. I mean, we were talking about fun, weren't we? And, and, you know, how would you describe the culture that makes it so special? 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.

5:16And 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. 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 kind of went, I hope we can say this. There are no dicks. You just look around and go, there's just no these massive egos.

5:47There are very talented people, but the ego is in the service of the agency, right? It's like everyone's in it together. And that really makes a big difference for the culture and the work. And do you, I mean, what do you look for when you're hiring someone? It's funny you mentioned Saatchi and Saatchi because so when I was at university, I decided suddenly having done a finance degree in my final year, I want to go into marketing and advertising, right? Which is a bit of a pivot. And I went down to the library and I dug out the Saatchi and Saatchi application form. I'm the same. I'm the same.

6:20Really? I think it's a superpower actually. I love the hidden kind of finance kind of training. For me, it was like Greek parents pushing me into finance. Dad has a finance background, did two internships, wasted two summers. Thank you, Chase Manhattan. And just couldn't feel it. I thought I was faking it. And I went to one talk. It was actually by Jeremy Bulmore, 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 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 but that was it 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 that's very i love that approach 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 how do you decide and do you fill it all do you feel not none of it what do you i thought that's really genius pictures yeah is it pictures is it words how do you know what they want you know how would you find out oh that's very interesting i think i mean i think the brief for here when we bring people in it is 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 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.

7:55And this place will reject you like a bad organ. If you do, 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 want to hire mediocre. And I think that's the thing that I would say separate. Now talk about hiring, we must get into McDonald's and let's start at the pitch. So what was the talk? What was the brief you guys got given right at the beginning of your relationship it when you, you know, well, we'll talk some about the pitch. How did you, how did you convince McDonald's to give you the account?

8:23I mean, the brief was really simple. 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 a bit beaten up. They'd spent too long listening to the haters and forgetting about the fans. And it was a long pitch. It was like nine month pitch. And I have to be honest, we, you know, we openly tell this story. Like the first half went terribly terribly and we had a global CEO presentation and then we came out and 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 think you might be a bit too New York a bit too Brooklyn basically the work was too edgy too out there too weird um and so we were like okay yeah go you know we're from the Midwest.

9:13So we said, all right, you know, you know what, whether it's just some pitch theater, you know, at worst, it would just be some pitch theater. At best, we can actually uncover something. I said to my boss at the time, you know, why don't we just do this road trip? I'm going to 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. But like Chicago to Atlanta gives you the beef eating Midwest, the chicken eating Southeast. You can do six states in about seven days. So it gives you the most sort of bang for your butt.

9:45And so we just went out there, me and 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 lunch, you want to be in and out. You don't want to spend an hour and a half talking to us. So we just broadened it out. We talked to mum's in Walmart. We went to a fine dining restaurant, ended up in the kitchens with a chef. My favourite one is we went to church in Alabama. We broke into a rock convention in Louisville and talked to some rockers.

10:18But each one started telling you personal anecdotes, right? The rockers, they're like, of course, McDonald's on the road. You know, I see those arches. We go, of course. The mum in Walmart, her eldest, who was I think eight, nine, 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. We then called those fan truths. And that literally has been the heart of the strategy.

10:48You 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. worried a bit to New York. Okay, well, look, and we had it up on the wall. We had the book of fan truths. 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 experienced truths, you know, golden lights and midnight salvation when you're drunk and, you know, you see the thing.

11:22It could be anything, right? And they looked at it and they went up to and they went, no one's ever done this before. Which again, just seems so obvious. And then that was it. We really have not looked back. I would have to say, 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's done client and agency. So he literally went from being the agency to being the client now, which is quite ironic. and he was pitching for Halifax, which is kind of a regional bank in the UK.

11:56And he decided to go down to one of their local branches. And I think he kind of presented the creative idea to sort of Brenda, the manager in Halifax, 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 want to make for you. And as a client, it's really hard to, you know, if that's what your frontline staff think about it, you've nailed it, you know. And I think so bringing in the audience, I think it's just like, must be like top tip for, you know, winning over a client. That's our number one filter.

12:28And 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 going to go on a rant. 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 people. I mean, we're not the customer, are we? I mean, that's what we always forget. You are not the customer. Now, so this is, am I right about this? About four years ago, you win the pitch, and then what happens?

13:00Well, I mean, the early wins were good because we put that strategy to use very quickly. The first thing we did was for Quarter Pounder, and I think this was where you want to 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. 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 five of them for all five 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 and and it's a it's a kind of a weird way to launch something you know 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 uh 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.

13:49That was our first thing out the door. 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 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. I think that his voice turned into such a confidence for the brand, which is one of the main reasons we ended up saying, okay, he's going to do absolutely everything.

14:19And has done. Him saying onions is one of my favorite. I should add as well. So we told you about fan truths is at the heart of the creative strategy. But a big part of that is also the voice. We talk a lot about voice at Wyden. The voice is fan to fan. So we say again at Wyden, 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 lapsed 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, 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?

15:02And what that means is it's just, it's so human. It's true. It's personal. There's a great Wieden quote, you know, the best advertising is a conversation between two people overheard by everyone else. And fan to fan is really the embodiment of that. That's beautifully put. Now, there was a rather small event, wasn't there, that impacted 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 surprise you to find out the best performing ad that you've made as voted by the public in terms of their response was actually your COVID response ad.

15:42so um i'll give you the score so we we mark the um every campaign out of one to five star five star being the best and five star putting in the top one percent right and we in fact we have to go to decimal places because everyone started going oh is it a good five star or a bad five star you know am i above them anyway so um so we actually take 5.9 so 5.7 which actually was the sixth we rather crazily during covid we tested every ad around the world that had covid because we had a bit of spare capacity because no one was advertising or testing advertising. So we had a bit of time on our hands.

16:15We thought, I know, we're going to 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 sixth out of 600 or so, 5.7 stars, which is brilliant. But what was 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 the execution varied based on country and the circumstances in, but it almost signaled the start of return to normality. And it also showed a lot of generosity. But explain the campaign for those that might not be familiar with it, because it's really quite powerful.

16:49Yeah. So that one, I mean, that was when we were giving away meals to first responders. And I think this is as good of an 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 it takes to fund it, to train the crew how to do it? And also, do you think about just the process of someone coming to get a free meal? How do we prove they're a first responder? I mean, that's a lot that goes into it. I haven't thought about that, actually. Do you have a few fakes? Come in uniform. And I think, 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.

17:28And again, even that presents complications. Like adult food's not meant to fit in that. So We were breaking all kinds of rules, but the system pulled it off. I mean, what they do, once we sell an idea, what they go do after it is 10x what we do on our side. But that was all about trying to figure out what is our purpose, what is our reason for being. 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 million meals. To your point about the system, I think we had a really small idea initially.

18:01like let's give them free coffee and they went no no that's not enough let's give them free meals we can make it happen and they did it in about two or three weeks i think 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 was 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 a.m on the day it was that mcdonald's reopened the mac is back yeah mac is back and And there were long queues.

18:33People couldn't get out of the car park again. It was just carnage because it kind of signaled that pent-up desire to get back out and have a McDonald's guest. Is there ever an advertisement for the power brand? I mean, that was it. 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 their current state as first responders. and when you look at that and you're like, how many of these exist? And we had way more than we could use that just finding, no, not just people, but first responders, you know, as a kid at a birthday party at McDonald's, so we found more than we could use, you know, it's again, power of the brand.

19:14Yeah, 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? We're talking about orders and first orders, famous orders, I should say, famous orders, first responder, famous orders, get it right around. Talk to me about that campaign because that was quite special, wasn't it? And was it launched around the Super Bowl? Because that's when I certainly I came across the famous orders. The first iteration of it. Yeah, you do the ad. The first iteration of it was the famous trays, which was Super Bowl right before COVID.

19:44So I think two interesting things came from that. One, you know, that was famous trays. 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 truth that has now been taken and done 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. That's, that was all that was as great as the execution was. That's all the people were talking about. And, um, that showed a fan that it was as much about the food as it was about the celebrity.

20:20It was as much about, you know, um, fan reactions to that as it was about the execution or the craft. And I think it was not what we thought was going to take it home. You know, we thought it would be much more about the artistry of the music, things like that, but that became what it was. 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 going to take something else. But it quickly moved into something bigger in 2020. I thought the genius thing about the idea there is like, you know, before, you know, and McDonald's might advertise the Happy Meal or the new salad or something like that.

20:56But you're limiting the potential of it, right? And then you can go, well, let's advertise the Big Mac or Quarter Pounder, and that broadens it. But actually, if you're advertising what's your McDonald's, that's everybody, right? So everyone's got their favorites. One of our main clients, JJ Healan, 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 want to 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.

21:26And so I've talked about Travis. I'll introduce him more properly. So as Brandon said, you know, that was February. We did the Super Spot. Then, like you said, the world went kind of nuts. We ran lots of messaging about we blew up the calendar for a start. So everything we had planned or they had planned, this was only about six months in for us. We got rid of 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 Q4 this year, I want to spend, invest in marketing.

22:02And here's your brief. What would you do? We want a brand platform. We want to drive sales. 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 what happens at Wider. You know, we had introducing crazy products, the Big Mac Muffin, which is two muffins stacked together. We were going to do, what's that thing in Dakota? Mount Rushmore, I want to do a Mount Rushmore. The Mount Rushmore 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 the Super Bowl idea and we said, hang on a minute.

22:37What 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. 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 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? If you haven't been snapped at the drive-thru with a, you know, getting McDonald's or with a bag of fries or with a Coke, then you're probably not a fan because the number of photos that exist of celebrities.

23:20And 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 merch that like his experience, his interpretation, his memory. And then you're on a winner, basically. 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. That's a really good example of that, isn't it? That's very, very powerful. So how did the campaign do?

23:50I mean, obviously, you know, it's exciting. You've got lots of celebrities involved. How did it actually perform? It went nuts. So when we launched the Travis Scott meal in October 2020, remember, it was still, you know, COVID was everywhere. It's almost like people have been starved 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 your experience. And yeah, we had lines around the block.