Why is it that McDonald’s’ numerous marketing campaigns are not as popular as the Golden Arches?

A while ago, everyone was flooded with news about McDonald’s changing its name to “Golden Arches”, right? At first everyone thought it was an internet joke, but it turned out to be true: McDonald's (China) Co., Ltd. was officially renamed Golden Arches (China) Co., Ltd. on October 12, 2017.

Although McDonald's explained that the change was mainly at the license level and would not affect daily operations, the "Golden Arches" quickly set off social networks , with people complaining and discussing it, and the speed and scope of the spread were astonishing. In fact, McDonald's has carried out several marketing campaigns this year, with good results, but why did it happen that an unintentional name change attracted so much attention from the whole nation?

When hot spots become a habit, people welcome the unexpected

Earlier this year, McDonald's produced a beautiful animated video to promote its new palace-style products, including "My Lady's Phoenix Burger", "My Concubine's Laughing Lychee Bubble Tea" and "My Love for Shrimp Burger", which interpreted the historical stories in people's impressions in a unique and trendy way.

Holiday hot spots are not only the focus of operations staff, but also a must-have for major brands. In addition to launching new palace-style products during the Spring Festival, McDonald's launched a limited-time 6-yuan McMax breakfast combo during the college entrance examination period, sending blessings to candidates with beautiful meanings.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the resumption of the college entrance examination. The admission ticket synthesis H5 with the theme #满分支持你# also ignited the emotions of netizens. Participants enter the year they took the college entrance examination and upload a photo, and they will get an admission ticket with their 18-year-old face. There are different versions of the admission ticket for people born in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s, which capture the characteristics of the era, and the paper details also enhance the authenticity.

Both events were well-conceived, but compared to the "Golden Arches" incident, they were clearly several orders of magnitude less popular. The advantage of holiday hotspots is that they are stable and predictable, but because of this, people lack a sense of surprise.

Moreover, with so many brands appearing in such dense locations, it becomes even more difficult for brands to stand out from the crowd, and it may even distract netizens from discussing the issue. It’s like several big eaters are trying their best to grab a piece of cake, but the end result is that it’s difficult for anyone to eat enough.

Dig deep into the main consumer groups and catch the traffic express train

From the palace-style new products during the Spring Festival to the full score support you H5 during the college entrance examination, people have become accustomed to holiday marketing .

But fortunately, McDonald's caught up with the traffic express train of the phenomenal variety show "The Rap of China" this summer.

As those born in the 1990s gradually become the main consumer group, major brands have begun to target young people in their marketing strategies. McDonald's recently signed Kris Wu as its spokesperson, and it is hard to say that this has nothing to do with KFC's signing of Lu Han last year.

Soon thereafter, McDonald's became the chief special sponsor of "The Rap of China", of which Kris Wu was one of the producers. The show also became popular because of a remark by Kris Wu. The first episode was viewed over 100 million times within 4 hours of its release, with nearly 1.9 billion readings of the topic on Weibo and nearly 7 million discussions. McDonald's China CMO Xu Cong said in an interview, "The timing of our signing Kris Wu and sponsoring The Rap of China is indeed very close. I can only say that this is the right time, right place and right people. There must be some corresponding considerations behind it."

The sponsorship not only brings McDonald’s brand exposure, but more importantly, it builds recognition among young people. As the program was broadcast during the summer vacation, McDonald's hit the right rhythm and launched the main product of its summer marketing - the "Snack Series". The variety of product types, low prices, and ease of sharing make the "snack series" easily meet the dietary needs of young people.

Keyword of universal marketing: sense of participation

But even with the support of popular young actors and hit variety shows, this wave of marketing is still not as popular as the "Golden Arches" incident, because the latter is a marketing craze involving the entire nation.

On October 25, an article titled "McDonald's (China) quietly changed its name! The news that it is now called Golden Arches quickly swept across major social networks and portals, and joke makers also came out in force.

Later, another article was published titled "In addition to the Golden Arches, which other companies have quietly changed their names?" 》 has also been widely circulated among netizens.

So the question is, why are people so eager to participate? According to the editor's analysis, the motivations for netizens to participate are nothing more than the following:

1) Complaint

Many people think that the name Golden Arches is too tacky, and the international brand instantly becomes full of rustic flavor. Moreover, the unexpected feeling of a familiar name being suddenly changed also makes people have a lot to say.

2) Share

News is a typical social currency. Knowing something before the people around you is something worth showing off. So everyone is happy to spread the news.

3) Curiosity

Many people are also curious, why did McDonald's change its name? Some media pointed out that this is not simply a news event, but a cultural event, with a localization strategy behind it. Therefore, similar to "Do you think McDonald's is stupid for changing its name to Golden Arches? The article "The latter has a very historical story" also attracted a lot of attention.

Speaking of this, I always feel that the name change incident created a hot topic by accident and it is difficult to replicate. However, a nationwide marketing campaign by KFC, McDonald’s old rival, is very valuable for reference.

On August 30, almost overnight, the KFC App entered the top 50 of the iOS popular app rankings . Why is this? It turns out that there was a bug in the KFC App. If a user changes his account birthday to "20160828", he can receive a half-price coupon for a six-person family bucket within five minutes, which is valid until August 31. Once such a bug that benefits the people was discovered, it naturally spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred. A lot of people downloaded and registered the KFC App, and it was pushed into the top 50 of the rankings.

There is no doubt that KFC is the biggest winner in this bug incident. It makes people doubt that there was no bug at all, but rather a national marketing campaign with clear purpose and strict logic. Similar purchasing bugs actually appear on many e-commerce platforms. For example, just after the specified deadline, users may find that the discounted price is still there, which can easily make them impulse buy. But in fact, this bug is most likely set intentionally by the merchant.

Final Thoughts

Brand marketing activities and event operations have a lot in common, both require enhancing user participation. No matter how carefully planned, it may not be as good as a joke or bug spread spontaneously by netizens. Therefore, when planning an event, we must avoid being self-satisfied , and instead consider whether it can trigger user self-propagation.

In addition, in marketing, response speed is particularly important. Although the nationwide complaints caused by McDonald's name change seem to be an accident that is difficult to replicate, it should be noted that McDonald's reaction speed is also very fast, not to mention Durex , which has attracted countless fans because of its fast speed and high quality of "riding on the hot spot".