McDonald’s Super Bowl campaign, ‘There’s a Big Mac For That’, is partly Canadian made, with Toronto-based Christina Yu and Jennifer Rossini on the creative team
As Americans switch on their TV sets for the Super Bowl on Sunday, a break in the pregame show on Fox will feature a bit of Canadian content – even though few viewers will realize it.
McDonald's Super Bowl ad, which will run just before the big game and introduces three sizes of Big Mac (not available in Canada) is partly Canadian-made: Christina Yu, creative director at Toronto ad agency Red Urban, led the creative team for the campaign, which included copywriter Jennifer Rossini as the ad's creative director and other Red Urban staff. The agency is owned by Omnicom Group Inc., which was asked to compete for the account last year – battling against fellow holding company Publicis Groupe SA and drawing in help from across its agency network.
What emerged was the new Chicago-based Omnicom agency, We Are Unlimited, created to serve the McDonald's account, including the Super Bowl. It's not unusual for a dedicated agency to be created just to serve a client as massive as McDonald's. But the request for collaboration within advertising-agency holding companies is growing among clients.
In 2015, for example, Procter & Gamble Co. invested millions in airtime during the U.S. broadcast to give more exposure to the Always "Like a Girl" campaign that had already done well online – the first time a feminine-hygiene product was ever advertised in the Super Bowl. The lead creative director was Leo Burnett Toronto chief executive officer and chief creative officer Judy John, who led a team comprising three Leo Burnett offices.
This kind of collaboration is becoming more common, according to Red Urban's Ms. Yu.
"We do interagency work, and we help each other out," she said, citing Red Urban's contributions to work for global clients in the past, such as Volkswagen and Stella Artois. "Clients are demanding more diverse thinking. [Agency] networks have to make a point of differentiation by saying that they have global talent to tap into, whether creative resources, or data analysts or other specialists."
Starting in 2012, holding company Havas SA began organizing its agencies under a single management team in what it calls "villages." Other agencies have changed their profit-and-loss accounting so that different parts of the business no longer work under separate P&L structures in order to break down the financial deterrents to working with others.
"The 'who gets what slice of the pie' mentality has, thankfully, started to break down," said Scott Knox, president and CEO of industry association The Institute of Communication Agencies. "What has to change is the remuneration strategy. You have to incentivize them to do it … If clients put their work into a network they need to know that those silos are gone."
The big game campaign for McDonald's, "There's a Big Mac For That," is a faux rap video listing the various occasions one might celebrate by eating a burger. Versions of the campaign will also launch on social-media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. The golden arches have taken on some tarnish in the United States as the chain fights slowing sales. While the Big Mac is a brand icon, younger consumers in particular aren't eating it. The campaign is designed to address that problem.
"It is all about bringing back the swagger, and introducing it to a new audience," Ms. Yu said.
Susan Krashinsky Robertson