THE CHALLENGE

Facebook is flooded with negative stories about McDonald’s Denmark that are either fake or originate from other countries. McDonald’s Denmark has continuously dismantled these fake stories in the press, but people keep spreading them on Facebook and many believe them to be true. We had to find new ways to debunk these myths. But how do you get sensation-hungry Danes to understand – and believe – that McDonald’s Denmark actually use organic eggs in their McMuffins, and that the fries are actually made from real potatoes without boring them to death?

THE IDEA

The idea was to create a fake news outlet on Facebook – The Fast News – enabling us to push the boring truth about McDonald’s to the Danes’ newsfeed through promoted clickbait posts. What immediately looked like the typical bad stories about McDonald’s, was in fact true stories, but not as sensational as the clickbait promised.

The Fast News on Facebook (Danish)
The Fast News website (Danish)

THE RESULT

We started an open conversation with the Danes where they usually express their strong opinions – in the comment section on Facebook. And the Danes joined in. Within the two weeks the campaign was running, The Fast News had nearly 900.000 post engagements on Facebook (out of a total of 3.5 million Danes on Facebook). 300.000 Danes visited our site, reading an average of 4 clickbait stories each - resulting in a total of 4.500 hours spent reading the boring truths about McDonald’s Denmark.