McDonald's spreads positive energy to kickstart the New Year

Like most big-city residents, Hong Kong people have been known to grumble and act gruffly, so McDonald’s wanted to spread some positive energy to start the calendar year and lead up to Chinese New Year.

Starring a well-known rap-comedy duo known as “Softhard”, the campaign uses a colourful Cantonese phrase, 開個靚頭. Roughly translated, that means 'have a brilliant start'. But the Chinese characters literally make reference to a 'beautiful head', which explains the costume heads in the ad.

Softhard appears in a series of TVCs promoting the brand’s Deluxe All Day Breakfast and 'Prosperity' burgers (beef and chicken flavours), twisty fries, crayfish soup and red bean pie.

The campaign, developed by DDB Group Hong Kong, includes TVCs, print, radio, mobile and point-of-purchase advertising. McDonald's is also running a number of related promotions.

To keep the good feelings rolling, a mobile site offers a new auspiciously themed game download every day through the month (33 in all). The chain is also offering a series of 10 Mr Men and Little Miss plush toys, available for an additional HK$15 (about US$2) with a qualifying food purchase.

On the first of the year, McDonald’s offered All Day Breakfast, which proved popular among those who were out late on New Year's Eve or woke up late on New Year's Day.

As Hong Kong's free newspapers did not publish on 1 January, McDonald’s stepped in to fill the void with its own newspaper, titled 靚頭條日報, which it distributed all over the city.

The brand is also the headline sponsor for a series of concerts by Softhard at the Hong Kong Coliseum.

Campaign name: McDonald's 2014 New Year Campaign – The Great Start To The Year
Agency: DDB Group Hong Kong
Client: McDonald's Hong Kong
Chief creative officer: Jeffry Gamble
Creative: Frankie Fung, Paul Yu, Cheong Lau, Roy Ha, Diana Nip, Kakit Hui, Leung Chung, Vincent Tse, Colin Siu, Joe Ting, Neil McCollum
Account servicing: Meggy Cheng, Tom Wong, Maggie Yuen, Koey Kong, Adrian Li, Hata Siu
TV production: Annie Tong, Vincent Wong
Director: Man Chung (Film Factory), Oceanic Chan (Bingo)
Digital production: Chui Yee Tang, Dickson Chan, Kenton Cheung, Joe Wan, Victor Fung, Alice Lok, Carmen Wong, Kiki Wong, Amy Kong
Media agency - OMD