When the mercury rises, telecommunications, alcohol and ice-cream campaigns can thrive, capturing the mood
of the moment. This year, McDonald’s hit the road right alongside them.
When Kiwis are out on road trips, swimming in the sea and taking well-deserved naps, getting our attention is tough, but some brands (ice-cream, anyone?) that encapsulate the essence of the Kiwi summer are successful
in capturing the interest of those who’ve clocked off – and this summer, McDonald’s was one of them. Seeking to own the season, they engaged DDB Group Aotearoa, and the result was the ‘Driver Tax’ campaign.
Director of Marketing at McDonald’s, Luke Rive, says the company chose DDB to help “drive brand meaningfulness and connection. This meant creating a light-hearted and feel-good campaign that would resonate with Kiwis across the country and from all walks of life.”
DDB’s Lead Business Partner, Karla Fisher, and Creative Director, Ben Pegler, say that in order to make McDonald’s synonymous with summer, they needed to depict Kiwis in their element. “We wanted to celebrate the fact that all these groups of people were out on the road enjoying the beautiful land that is New Zealand [and] stopping at McDonald’s,” says Fisher.
Knowing McDonald’s already had a strong brand association with New Zealanders, DDB expanded on it and introduced the ‘driver tax’ concept to their campaign. “We identified that as a real ‘fan truth’,” says Fisher. “These are the moments [when] Macca’s intercepts their customers’ world in a real, relatable, shared and special way, and it’s what helps make people feel the brand. If we tell stories about these beautiful truths, we’re likely to connect with Kiwis, because these are real, relatable moments.”
Rive says they wanted to expand on the fan truth and home in on it as the key to their campaign. “We wanted to really dial it up and celebrate it in an authentic, simply told and playful way.”
When a lot of people are out and about, television ads are the least effective, so the team had to think laterally. At this time of year, TV is also competing with all sorts of different advertising activations at the season’s hottest events. “It’s the time to pick your media wisely,” says Fisher.
The ‘Driver Tax’ campaign launched with 60- and 15-second TV ads, social and in-store placements, and through the McDonald’s app. With the latter, Pegler says DDB was able to connect to a “whole bunch of people in unique and innovative ways”. Clocking up nearly nine million users, McDonald’s sees their app as a growing channel.
“It’s a great vehicle for us to attach our brand-building activity to, a hard- working piece of bottom-of-the-funnel media that also allows us to create utility and customers to participate in our campaigns,” says Fisher.
Choosing the right media wasn’t the only challenge. “The whole summer period is quite cluttered with ice-cream and Coke and beer, so the challenge is to stand out and not feel too generic,” says Pegler.
DDB had to make something that wasn’t simply just an ad, so they added their refreshing summer twist. “We did a few fun things on the side,” says Fisher. “We’re graced with an app that connects with nine million people, so we were able to celebrate our campaign in that app. We offered a pack of bonus fries for customers who ordered certain meals, so that they could pay their ‘driver tax’. There was also a calculator in the app that could work out how much ‘tax’ was owed to the driver, depending on how many passengers were in the car and how far they were driving, etc. All those little aspects [amplified the message and allowed people to] participate in different ways.”
Pegler says the fan truth of the ‘driver tax’ gave the campaign something fresh and new for Kiwis to connect with, and that’s ultimately what resonated with them. Many a summer campaign has tried to depict the summer road trip, only to fall short and end up ‘wallpapery’. This campaign’s concept gives New Zealanders a strong, new
brand association.
The moment they came up with the idea, Fisher and Pegler knew it was a winner. As well as Kiwis having their own pre-existing experiences with the ‘driver tax’, internet culture backs it up in the form of memes, TikTok videos and more. Fisher and Pegler say the campaign reflected what virtually everyone was doing at that time of year, not just a handful of people, and that we’ve all fallen victim to the ‘tax hand’ held out by a driver to ask for their share of road-trip treats. “The reality of us all going to Macca’s during summer and the tax hand being a synonymous part of that experience allowed us to do that,” says Pegler.
The success of this campaign proved something else – that gone are the days of ‘sadvertising’, something that first came about during the pandemic. The world of advertising is shifting from deep stories “that had lots of light and shade and twists and turns” to stories being delivered as “simple truths”.
“[We’re] in a really light-hearted, playful space,” says Fisher. “We call it [the] feel-good way – [we’re seeking to] make feel-good connections with simple stories playfully told, [rather than] the slightly more academic, purposeful stories of the past.”
Amid this shift, McDonald’s holds its own as a brand that embodies bright and cheerful stories, with its marketing appealing to people of all cultures and ages. Older customers still recall previous campaigns that resonated with them, like the ‘Make it Click’ programme, and now DDB is creating something the younger generations can look back on.
“They are our customers of tomorrow,” says Fisher. “We’re looking at what influences Gen Z, their behaviours, habits and what they watch, so we can be more relatable to them. Almost every campaign has a Gen Z lens on it now. It may not be specifically targeted towards them, but we need to make sure they can relate.”
With ‘Driver Tax’, DDB Group Aotearoa and McDonald’s became stiff competition for rival brands, positioning Macca’s as a summer staple for Gen Z and everyone else as well.
This was first published in our March/April 2024 issue.
