In his latest column for MCA, Mark McCulloch – the brand and marketing guru behind Supersonic Inc – considers McDonald’s Peely Peely TV campaign, as the fast food operator slowly ditches their most famous game-paign and goes more McDigital.
I don’t really watch TV anymore as I live on the phone screen so the ‘Peely Peely’ TV campaign from McDonald’s to promote their latest Monopoly game passed me by, but it is another genius piece of creative from Leo Burnett and McDonald’s.
I came across the ‘Peely Peely’ phrase when I saw a lot of the Love Island stars doing Peely Peely on Instagram Stories (don’t judge me!) and it piqued my curiosity. But this tells you where the attention is of the fragmented audience and whether it was paid or not – Instagram Stories is a hugely underrated ad platform and all brands should be majoring on it.
As the stories feed is viewed more that the Instagram news feed then it definitely is time to change up your Instagram marketing. Since seeing the ‘P.P.’ Instagram Stories I have sought out all of the creative and you should definitely check it out on You Tube as soon as you can.
But just as they have created a catchphrase so catchy that all the kids will be doing in the playground post flossing (until some teacher spoils it) they have announced that they are going more digital and the action of Peely Peely is no more.
This is a brave move and also a bit odd to put so much effort and budget behind promoting this when they knew it was a dead duck offline after 30 April 2019, but this is the right move and will drive more app action as focus groups and public feedback has been about the environmental impact plus the fact that the glue on the tabs were not sticking to the monopoly board, so you had to reach for the sellotape.
However, it does make me nervous as ensuring adoption will be the same, or even more, will be a slow-burn and a big comms trick to pull off. Going from offline to online and creating a new behaviour is never easy (I think about working on contactless campaign at Barclaycard for example – it took years).
What I am also surprised at is the lack of organic Instagram activity on the part of McDonald’s UK (and Burger King for that matter). I know they do a great job on advertising on and offline, but I think that both really need to up their organic game in the feed and on stories with compelling content (not just burger, shake, burger, ooh apple pie, burger, packaging, exterior, burger) and looking at having a wider repertoire and huge swell of content will definitely help keep engagement and relevance up.
I hope the phrase ‘Peely Peely’ lives on and the app turns out to be smart enough to feel you peel as you scroll and swipe. The Tinder for free burgers and shakes.
I’d be really interested to see what you all thought. Tweet me @supersonic_inc or Mark McCulloch on LinkedIn #mcabites
Idea – 9/10
Effort vs Return - 7/10
Execution – 8/10
Impact – 7/10
Summary – 8/10. Peely fun for everyone.
Precis
