McDonald's Uses Facebook Places to Build Buzz For Singapore's National Day

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To build excitement around Singapore's National Day on August 9 and promote its Chicken McGrill sandwich, McDonald's is using Facebook Places to drive thousands of check-ins, which it hopes will translate into actual traffic and sales for its franchise island-wide.

The "Make it Better for Singapore" campaign kicked off early this week with a microsite that tracks the number of check-ins across the island. The goal is to achieve 46,000 check-ins, which will unlock a 'surprise' deal to celebrate Singapore's 46 years of independence.

Visitors can check in to the fast food chain either by using Facebook Places on their smartphones or by clicking on the zones represented on the microsite from their computers.

Three days into its launch, close to 24,000 hits have registered on the site.

Jeff Cheong, head of Tribal DDB Singapore, the agency involved with the digital execution, said a key objective of the location-based service campaign is to generate intrigue on what McDonald's will do when the site has attracted 46,000 check ins.

He said the agency collaborated closely with Facebook to authenticate the locations for checking in on Facebook Places.

McDonald's is encouraging social sharing of the promotion on the microsite and on its Facebook page, which has 50,000 fans. Chatter on that page suggests Singaporeans based in the different zones are competing to get more check-ins.

The digital component is part of an integrated campaign that includes print, outdoor, and TV advertising.

The campaign follows the success of an earlier social marketing initiative in March that used Twitter to drive buzz. Also on behalf of the Chicken McGrill, McDonald's organized a private tasting event for a group of local bloggers. It also invited Mr Brown, a popular blogger in Singapore, to provide coverage, encourage people to use the #makeitbetter hashtag on Twitter, and provide a coupon on his blog.

The weeklong campaign generated 120,000 visits to the site and more than 1,000 tweets an hour after launch. Sales results were highly successful, according to Cheong, but he declined to disclose specific figures.

McDonald's Twitter campaign in Singapore earlier this year sparked rival Burger King to launch a similar microsite a few days after the campaign ended with the tagline "Make It Even Better With The King – Flame Grilled, Not Fake Grilled" and enabled consumers to print coupons to purchase its chicken burgers at S$1.