Dr Mumbo

Remember the time McDonald’s created the #DownUnderBigMac hashtag and nobody used it?

Sometimes when brands attempt to tap into social media it resonates. And sometimes… it doesn’t.McDonald's store front

Take the push from McDonald’s to tap into Australia Day by getting people to eat their burgers upside down.

Surely you know the one? That one they were doing news site takeovers to promote three days after Australia Day. Along with an outdoor advertising campaign.

big-mac-news-takeover

You see, in Australia, because we’re at the opposite end of the world to civilisation, we do everything upside down.

Which makes eating Big Macs upside down the epitome of Australianity.

McDonald’s implored:

Since 1971, the Big Mac has been made with homegrown Aussie ingredients.

The only way you could make it more Aussie would be to flip it down under.

So this Australia Day, turn your Big Mac upside down and enjoy it the Aussie way.

big-mac-copywriting

For customers who are hard of understanding, there was a picture explaining how that might look.

big-mac-upside-down

How a Big Mac looks… upside down

But best of all the obligatory social media call to arms – cajoling customers to “share a snap of you enjoying your Down Under Big Mac”:

big-mac-social-media

Which at least gives some clues on how well the campaign (update: which Dr Mumbo understands was led by digital agency VML) has resonated.

Over on Twitter, at the time of posting,the #downunderbigmac hashtag has been used precisely four times.

Once by @itsyoungdoz, who has two (yes, two) followers and was incredulous about the outdoor poster…

… twice by @nat42 (who has no followers at all) to label the campaign as “kinda dumb”…

… and once by @bluehorizonkits (98 followers) to point out that nobody has been using the hashtag…

With that sort of reach, it would have been cheaper to hand deliver an upside down Big Mac to each of the 100 people who might have been reached on Twitter.

But to be fair, you can also find hashtags on platforms other than Twitter.

Over on Instagram, it would have been possible to describe #DownUnderBigMac as a hashtag wasteland, if that wasn’t unfair to wastelands. There were precisely two posts.

Shane Geffen, a copywriter for McDonald’s’ creative agency DDB, posted an image of the ad and got 39 likes..

And Mabel Tu, an account manager at DDB, posted a picture and got 13 likes.

And on Facebook, things were even bleaker…

facebook-big-mac-no-posts

To date, Dr Mumbo has been able to discover no snaps whatsoever of an actual person actually enjoying an actual upside down Big Mac and actually using the hashtag.

But four days after Australia Day, it’s still not too late. Dr Mumbo implores you: Please, help out a hashtag and take a snap. Won’t somebody please think of the social media managers?

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.