McDonald’s has always been at the forefront of American advertising across various mediums.  More recently the company has tested the social media waters, using Facebook, Twitter and other resources to market themselves.  Within the last couple of weeks McDonald’s has launched a campaign that is particularly unique.

The campaign, “Who’s got the Mighty Wings”, features each of the two quarterbacks represented in the 2013 Superbowl, Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick.  The two compete for McDonald’s new “Mighty Wings” in a football throwing competition reminiscent of a 1993 McDonald’s ad featuring professional basketball players Michael Jordan and Larry Bird (below).

But this ad, while lacking the celebrity of its predecessor, has more to it.  First, McDonald’s adds a “whodunit” twist at the end of the commercial.  When the quarterbacks’ competition ends, the “Mighty Wings” are missing.  The spot ends with “Who’s got the #MightyWings” shown in large text on the screen, an attempt to attract consumers to social media as so many of today’s commercials do, in order to solve the mystery.  Like most companies that are up-to-date on their marketing, McDonald’s new campaign is well represented on its social media pages.  (The commercial is referenced on the company’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts.)

But the most interesting and engaging aspect of the campaign is that in order to follow the narrative, one would have to navigate Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, not just one of them.  Rather than posting redundantly, the information presented on Facebook is different from that on Twitter, which in turn is different from the information on Instagram, encouraging anyone interested to “investigate” each of the accounts. Through the social media outlets, the campaign introduces and provides background on several suspects in addition to the quarterbacks to help solve the mystery.

 

Through its pervasive new campaign, McDonald’s emphasizes just how far social media has come.  While unique, it will be interesting to see if this results in effective product marketing.  Take a look below.