MCDONALD'S UAE

McDonald’s boosted ad recall by 3.7% in the UAE by inviting people on Instagram to “eat” its burgers with Augmented Reality ads.

View @mcdonaldsuae
THE STORY
Rise of the golden arches

McDonald’s is an international chain of restaurants whose history goes back to 1940 in the US. In the UAE, McDonald’s 160 restaurants are owned and operated by Emirates Fast Food Co.

3.7%

lift in ad recall with Augmented Reality ads plus usual campaign ad formats, compared to usual ads alone

4.1%

lift in favorability with Augmented Reality ads plus usual campaign ad formats, compared to usual ads alone

At McDonald’s UAE, we believe that creating moments of connections with our audience on the right platforms is key to drive effective business and media results. Along with our partners at UM, we centralized our efforts to produce digital experiences to connect with our audience on the leading social platform in the UAE, which contributed to a healthy uplift in our brand results.
HASSAN ABOUEZZEDDINE, SENIOR MARKETING DIRECTOR, MCDONALD’S UAE
THE GOAL
Raising brand awareness

McDonald’s wanted to find an engaging new way to raise awareness of its regional range of burgers in the UAE.

Something Went Wrong
We're having trouble playing this video.
Learn more
THE SOLUTION

Augmented reality burgers

McDonald’s wanted to make this campaign for its range of burgers memorable, so it decided to experiment by adding augmented reality ads to its usual campaign consisting of video ads and ads in Stories.

Augmented reality experiences let people on mobile interact with products using their phone camera. For these campaign, McDonald’s placed an image of a burger on screen, and invited people on Instagram to “eat it up” in as few bites as possible. As people opened and closed their mouths on camera, the burger would start to disappear, with bites taken out of it. The Augmented Reality ads ran across Instagram and Facebook in feed. Results were measured with a brand lift study.

The campaign ran during June and July 2022, and achieved:

  • 3.7% lift in ad recall with Augmented Reality ads plus usual campaign ad formats, compared to usual ads alone
  • 4.1% lift in favorability with Augmented Reality ads plus usual campaign ad formats, compared to usual ads alone
Create Ad
Working on this augmented reality filter with Meta for this very special campaign for McDonald’s UAE was very exciting. Adding an augmented reality filter to the usual ads has helped us drive significant impact and has also pushed for incremental impact on the overall brand metrics, way above vertical norm. The augmented reality filter hit 68% audience reach, whilst playing key role in campaign ad recall!
JOELLE HARFOUCHE, SENIOR MEDIA EXECUTIVE, UM
Prev case studyPrev
Next case studyNext