McDonald's – Hot Advertising

I'm lovin' it – SMS for branding and traffic

Background
Hot Advertising was used to send 80,000 messages with the hotline, ‘I’m lovin’ it’. Those HotSMS members who chose the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ hotline, were presented with a pop-up window into which they could enter the name of a recipient. This name was then incorporated into the URL that was publicised in the hotline. The latter was inserted at the bottom of the sender’s SMS message.  When the recipient entered the URL in a computer, he was welcomed and addressed by his own name.

Ted Doomen, Strategy Director of Tribal DDB
(responsible for McDonald's ‘I’m lovin’ it’ campaign)

HotSMS offers a great deal for a youth target group. They produced an additional facility for us, which made it possible for us to generate SMS messages containing a personalised URL. The sender also got to see it, and that received a very good response!

Impact on sender
At www.hotsms.com 13.4% of the senders clicked on the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ banner, which they got to see after sending their sponsored SMS message. The name of the sender was also visible in the banner. Because the HotSMS user was logged in when he sent his SMS message, it was possible to incorporate his first name in the banner automatically.

Impact on recipient
Approximately 16% of the recipients who got an SMS message from HotSMS.com actually visited the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ website in response to the hotline which they received containing their own name.