Campaign breakdown: How McDonald’s #RaiseYourArches ad went viral

If you haven’t raised your eyebrows in time to the beat of McDonald’s recent ad campaign #RaiseYourArches, then you haven’t been paying attention.

With nearly 5 million views on TikTok and 1,000 posts on Instagram, the tongue-in-cheek advert has proven itself to be popular across social media despite not including any McDonald’s branding or food.

Dyzio founder Matt Hebden and CTO Laurie Bantin – have crunched the numbers from the influencer and insights and tracking platform to take a closer look at the creator strategy driving the campaign’s remarkable success on social media – and there’s not a Big Mac in sight.

At the start of January, ad agency Leo Burnett launched #RaiseYourArches; a new campaign for McDonald’s void of its two most important assets: its restaurant and its food.

Using subtle cues, the campaign was still recognisably from McDonald’s, and represents an interesting new approach from the brand. Creators played a central role in taking this simple but striking creative idea and making it their own to help deliver mass awareness and engagement, as a key pillar of McDonald’s marketing strategy.

What is the #RaiseYourArches campaign?

So, what was the thinking behind the risky, but ultimately bold idea?

#RaiseYourArches tells the story of a group of office workers who all conspire to visit McDonald’s without saying a single word to each other. The campaign centres on the creative insight that the invitation to grab a McDonald’s is so universal, it can be communicated without saying a word.

McDonald’s started teasing the ad on 10 January on the @mcdonaldsuk Instagram page, posting a
short clip of its ‘golden arches’ and putting the eye emoji in the caption, alluding to something
coming soon.

Three days later, McDonald’s released the ad on social and TV, introducing the #RaiseYourArches hashtag for the first time. Finally, on 16 January, it launched a two-week promotion scheme, offering app users different discounts each day for the duration of the campaign.

This was specifically set up to drive app downloads and – as the number one downloaded fast food app in 2022 – it will be interesting to see the impact of this new campaign throughout 2023.

In addition to the TV campaign, a series of offline and online advertisements ran across social media, underpinned by a range of offers to promote app downloads.

The campaign was also turbo-charged across socials as the fast food restaurant called on employees, brands and creators to get involved in the eyebrow-raising action, with Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok all developing lenses to support the campaign.

Creators using these lenses were encouraged to invite their followers to take part in the trend by tagging them in the caption, followed by the tagline ‘Fancy a McDonald’s?’.

Trust in creator authenticity

Once the campaign launched, people were encouraged to take pictures and videos featuring the distinctive eyebrow wiggle and share them online with the hashtag #RaiseYourArches.

Partnering with a diverse range of creators who had full creative control of their TikTok videos and Instagram reels helped the campaign gain popularity and traction. Users’ content reflected their personality and interests, encouraging others to create their own take on the campaign.

Popular TV personalities Sam Thompson and Zara McDermott – who are known for receiving high
engagement on their creative Instagram Reels – partnered with McDonald’s and created a funny sketch encouraging users to jump on the ‘Raise Your Arches’ filter.

This campaign also saw professional makeup artist Sophie Hannah creating her own on-brand red and yellow look on Instagram and TikTok famous musician Fin Draper recreating the ‘Raise Your Arches’ campaign tune from scratch using different instruments.

Engaging with diverse communities

Through this diverse range of creator partnerships, McDonald’s was able to adopt a multi-layered approach to connect with new customers, as well as reminding old ones of its iconic status. Highlighting this broad appeal, it partnered with foodies, dancers and fashion micro-influencers, as well as professional make-up artists, musicians and TV personalities with millions of followers.

By using a smart combination of niche (micro and mid-tier influencers) and mass marketing (macro and
mega influencers), McDonald’s was also able to encourage engagement in the campaign across a wide spectrum of communities.

This allowed individuals to engage with their favourite creator or add their personal creative flare through their own social media.

As a result of this, the hashtag has been used nearly 1,000 times on Instagram and viewed 5 million times on TikTok.

Delivering daily anticipation

McDonald’s kept its consumers hooked and excited throughout the duration of the campaign by releasing a new promotional offer every day.

By pushing for app downloads through the promise of a daily reward, promoted by creators on their socials, McDonald’s successfully kickstarted its #RaiseYourArches campaign over this short period.

#RaiseYourArches exceptional impact

The #RaiseYourArches campaign has achieved an ‘exceptional’ brand recognition score, as
outlined by research company, System1. System1 tested the ad with 150 consumers, with 98%
recognising that the ad was McDonald’s before the end of the 60 seconds.

The average score attained by brands in this category is 91%, which means McDonald’s scored an incredible ‘exceptional’ brand recognition. The fact that McDonald’s did not have to showcase its food or its restaurant in the advert displays the strength of its brand equity.

It will be interesting to see how the campaign develops and how this positive brand awareness will
transfer into increased sales over the coming months.