McDonald’s Washington DC Curbside Delivery
CHALLENGE
Golin Public Relations is a global PR company that does spectacular and innovative work in public relations and social media. They have a number of huge clients, including McDonald’s, the CDC, Staples, etc. Occasionally, the creative team at Golin comes up with a project where they could use some help. For this particular project, Golin was tasked with helping McDonald’s launch a brand new, app based service, using the Washington D.C. market as the test market. Prerequisite to the launch were, online, social media, PR and video components.
Golin and McDonald’s signed up Washington Wizards superstar, John Wall to be the spokesperson. The only catch as that they only had access to John for two hours. Not only that, the concept needed to be running within three days from the earliest date John was available.
That’s when Golin turned to The M Network.
Not only would we have to help them come up solid creative ideas for the launch, we would also have to figure out how to execute those solid creative ideas in just a couple hours.
APPROACH
Golin’s creative director, along with the team from McDonald’s, wanted to do some sort of play-by-play gag that would allow us to play off John Wall’s NBA fame.
We decided that, the sake of time, the entire spot would need to be shot in a single location – in this case, inside a 2016 Chevy Suburban.
The set was small, but effective for the time we had to shoot
Limited time and limited space made the equipment decision an easy one. We went with a pair of Canon 5D mark iii cameras and a GoPro Hero 5.
Small and portable – The Canon 5D m iii performed beautifully
For obvious reasons, we cast the in-arena announcer for the Washington Capitals hockey team, Wes Johnson, in the role of play-by-play announcer.
Not sure why Wes kept going back for more make-up
We then secured a McDonald’s location in the Washington DC area.
John actually bought lunch. The man loves McDonald’s!
Shoot day arrived… and so did the rain! The only thing to do was to build a tent around our 2016 Chevy Suburban location vehicle and then ask our DP and lighting director extraordinaire to fake sunshine with lights.
Creating fake sunlight on a rainy day.
In one of the fastest commercial shoots we’ve ever attempted, in some of the most uncooperative conditions — two-hours and ton of laughs later, we had the entire spot in the can.[/caption]
John Wall and Wes Johnson goofing off on the set
That was only half the battle. We cut the spot back in our Miami studios the next day; added graphics the following day and delivered the final to the client on day three.
To cap things off, after searching for several hours for the perfect “arena organ” sound effect, our own Thom Mozloom played the score using an iPad app, and did it in real time directly into the timeline. Proof once again that “we can do anything.”
THE OUTCOME
Rarely do commercials get reviews, but this one showed up in the Washington Post – where it was said, “The 45-second spot, which was shot last week, just might be the best McDonald’s ad featuring two teams in the D.C. area since Redskins and Orioles players danced together in 1984.”
And because of the success of this spot, Golin and McDonald’s brought us back and gave us another hour with John. This time we went to another local McDonald’s but instead of a shooting a commercial, we went documentary style in order to surprise guests ordering curbside. For this project, we used a Sony F7 and pair of GoPros on Karma sticks to shoot John in action. We then cut the video at a table at the McDonald’s using a new Macbook Pro and Premier Pro. The entire project was shot and edited in 4 hours. News stations that Golin lined up to cover the story had the video that evening.
http://www.fox5dc.com/sports/wizards-star-john-wall-delivers-food-orders-to-mcdonalds-customers
M NETWORK CAPABILITIES DEPLOYED
Branding
Strategy
Messaging
Visual Design
Media Placement