Chef Collab
The Challenge
As most businesses, McDonald’s focus on growth. At McDonald’s this can come from selling more to both existing and new guests – and increasing restaurant visits.
Taste and quality are the most important drivers of buying intention, and a large group of Danes (56%) are so-called “switchers”, who only visit McDonald’s occasionally. The perception of the quality of the food among this group is lower than among regular guests.
So the growth potential – and brief – was to change quality perception to increase visit frequency.
The idea
Over the last 10-15 years, Denmark has become world famous for our chefs, Michelin stars and top-class gastronomy. But for the Danes, the Michelin chefs’ kitchen has, until now, been reserved for the few! In 2021, we launched a long-term strategic campaign platform for McDonald’s under the Homestyle category, where gourmet chefs create burgers in collaboration with McDonald’s. Since its launch in 2021, both Paul Cunningham, Henrik Jyrk, Jonathan Berntsen and Per Thøstesen have each created two burgers and each campaign has been based on the individual chef’s personality and skills, showing them in kitchens, restaurants – and Tokyo! In addition, we used Danes as “everyday food critics”. Both making SoMe content and letting anyone rate the burgers in the app using 1-5 stars.
The Results
The collaboration with the gourmet chefs has been a huge success!
Food quality perception at McDonald’s increased 25%.
The number of people who believe that poor food quality is the reason why they do not trust McDonald’s has fallen by 20% since the launch.
McDonald’s has ”Great Tasting Burgers” increased by 20%.
38% of Danes (43% among switchers) stated that the collaboration with gourmet chefs had a positive effect on their view of food at McDonald’s.
Campaign awareness 77%.
The platform has raised the average weekly sales in the Homestyle category by as much as 103% (as per Q1 2022).
