Ideas We Love Issue no.4

The McDonald's KiwiBurger

1991 was the year when Terminator 2 hit our screens, Bryan Adams topped the UK charts (seemingly forever), Sonic the Hedgehog sped into existence and the first page of the world-wide-web was loaded.

Matt looked like this…

and Tom looked like this…

It was also when egg and beetroot came together in perfect, delicious harmony with the creation of the iconic Kiwiburger at McDonald’s in New Zealand. 

Fast forward to 2023, and Maccy D’s has relaunched New Zealand’s favourite burger with its latest campaign from DDB Group Aotearoa, taking audiences three decades back in time.

Not just with what’s on the menu, but with how they promoted it, by bringing “The Best of ‘91” back into the 21st Century.

Being on the other side of the world, we had to do a bit of Googling, but from what we can tell the campaign launched with a little trip down memory lane.

But to take some of that nostalgic magic out of the spot and bring it into a people’s everyday lives both longtime lovers of the Golden Arches and welcome newcomers were encouraged to find their old fax machines and participate in a ‘fax-to-win’ promotion for a complimentary Kiwiburger.

But was it real, would it actually work?

Well, surprisingly, yes it did.

Thousands of people went round their garages, their grandparents houses and their local libraries to dig out, dust-off and fax “KIWI” to +64-9-281-4506 for their chance to win one of 5,000 Kiwiburgers and see what happened.

Receiving a unique code back by you guessed it…the fax machine…

With a lovely touch of creating an apology note for those who tried to game the system and fax more than once.

Surprisingly, the use of fax machines is not entirely obsolete, as evidenced by the submission of almost 3,500 individual faxes in just two weeks – no doubt over-indexing in media departments who still have to fax insertion orders to legacy digital media owners.

Not content with reviving the fax machine, McDs also introduced ‘Floppy Disk Vouchers,’ challenging enthusiastic fans to scour their attics, schools and local charity shops to locate a computer equipped with a floppy disk drive.

Successfully unlocking the MS-DOS file on the disk revealed a voucher for a well-deserved Kiwiburger.

A lovely idea, that’s perfectly served.

What we love about this idea…

#1 A fresh serving of nostalgia

From the Barbie Movie to the Beckham documentary, to Stranger Things & “Jordan 1s”, there have been no shortage of supply of 80s and 90s nostalgia recently ; McDonald’s could have simply locked and loaded the key visual and copy-combo into their inventory and gone for lunch.

However that puts them at risk of being lost in a sea of similarish plays, brand aesthetics and insta posts that have been doing the rounds in recent times.

What turns this from a good idea to a great one in our opinion is how they gave this nostalgic play a tangible twist in ways that feel obvious now, but so fresh at the same time – with “media” at the heart of how it achieved this.

Nostalgia increasingly feels like it’s a central pillar to the McDonalds brand strategy. At a time when the cost of living crisis is biting hard and there is so much instability in the wider world, who doesn’t yearn for a simpler, happier time?

In the UK, we’ve had the recent Teletext ad, whilst elsewhere they seemlessly integrated themselves into a time travelling storyline in Marvel’s Loki.

Just like Knorr in last week’s newsletter, this is global platform thinking, that’s flexed expertly through the lens of local food and media culture to build brand fame.

#2 Using old tech, in new and novel ways

When everyone else in marketing-land is zigging towards mixed reality experiences, served up by generative assistants, recorded on the blockchain – McDs zagged into reviving tech last seen in the 90s to create a unique sales-promo with a newsworthy hook.

For the price of a few faxes and some floppy disks. Lovely.

Ripe for briefing influencers of all shapes, sizes and sub-cultures to get involved and push the promotion on their behalf.

#3 Purposefully adding friction and frustration 

Your typical sales-promo tries to make redemptions as simple and pain-free as possible.

Landing page optimisation is a multi-billion dollar business.

However much like the “IKEA” effect, people having to find a fax machine and figure out how you might use it might put a cap on redemptions, but sure makes it more rewarding and memorable for those that do get the voucher, redeem and take a sweet, sweet bite of a free burger. 

What we’d love to do have done with this idea…

#1 F****** around, finding out

Much like I always find it amusing watching my Dad trying to use a mobile phone like a caveman seeing fire for the first time, or how my kids used to prod the TV like their iPad, on the flip side you can imagine famous broadcast presenters / comedians across across the South Island having good fun finding out how a fax machine, or an MS-DOS file from the 90s works in 2023.

Reminiscent of these two kids reacting to 90s hits for the first time on YouTube…

…depending on the regulations in NZ you could task a PR team to get the promo onto TV / Radio shows or fund it with ad dollars, thus making the idea feel like it’s catching fire and making the Kiwiburger’s return an even bigger talking point in pop culture.

#2 Now that’s what I call the 90s

The inclination here is to drop the promo into as much 90s tech as McDs could feasibly find, with the benefit of creating a longer tail to the campaign (each week, a “new” format - mix-tapes, mini-discs, gameboys etc), but also to enable its extension into different sub-cultures too.

What we think is interesting is to find formats like the fax machine or the floppy disk but work them in both “statement” and “scalable” ways.

For instance could you turn the promotion into a computer game, creating a 90s inspired, lo-fi level of a platform game inspired by the SNES that reveals the code once you’ve beaten the boss.

The “statement” way to take this into the world might be turning 6 sheet ad-formats, into Kiwiburger arcade machines. 

A promo anyone can play, but in prominent, landmark spaces as the machine goes on tour around NZs largest cities (and McDonalds Restaurants).

The “scalable” way to take this into the world might be making it playable on mobile, but in keeping with “The Best of 91” only making that game available through nostalgic re-runs of 1991s most iconic movies or programming you’ve scheduled in prime-time with a local broadcaster. 

Therefore, our last play would be…..

#3 Media Time Machine

Why not go one step further and take people even further into the 90s and use the films, music and TV shows of the era to not only editorialise the idea in more interesting ways, but to add volume and distribution to the idea. 

This might involve a partnership with Secret Cinema to re-stage one of the 90s most iconic films, with Kiwiburgers served up by servers in McDs uniform of the 90s or working with TV stations to revive or rebroadcast popular 90s TV shows. This could be as a ‘90s season or more substantially, could involve bringing shows back as we’re about to see with the return of Gladiators in the UK.

This could also be extended into a wide range of other media outlets. On radio, where we revive the sounds and artists of the period. In bookshops, where we revive the titles on the best-sellers list that year. In Food Magazines, where we revisit the most popular recipes. And so on.

If you like this, you’ll love….

The Barbie Movie

The campaign to launch last year’s Barbie Movie was a treasure trove of nostalgia, informing everything from partnerships and collaborations to the rather OTT Barbie Malibu beach house

Spotify’s Listen Like You Used To

Some lovely writing on display in this campaign from Spotify that is fuelled by nostalgia for the music of our collective youths. The UB40 execution speaks to us both on a deeply personal level.

Channel 4 ‘ Partygate’

Evoking the visual language of the 90s acid house scene to promote a show all about a different type of illegal rave. Fly-posted OOH, wrist bands in National Print and posters attached to lamposts. Laaarvely.

Porsche x Aimé Leon Dore

The German carmarker and New York fashion brand have entered into a series of partnerships to reissue nostalgic ‘one of one’ editions, porsche providing the car and ALD providing the fixtures, fittings and detailing.

Skinny Mobile’s Phone it in

Another campaign from NZ. This time from our colleagues at PHD and their partners at Colenso BBDO. A campaign that doesn’t settle for a standard definition of what constitutes a media touchpoint, flexing it’s creative muscles in many many ways.

The KiwiBurger: We’re Lovin’ It

I think if you had to press either of us for a ‘top 5’ list of brands or advertisers who we think do consistently good work, then I Maccas would feature highly. They do so many of the fundamentals in media and advertising brilliantly and do it coherently and consistently. The danger when you apply How Brands Grow is that the work can become a bit forumulaic, an exercise in maths more than imagination. McDonald’s manage to consistently build a sense of warmth, generosity and fun onto those principles to great effect.

As always, thanks for reading.

Until next time, cheerio.

Matt & Tom