The world of coffee has gone mad, with brands going to absurd lengths to communicate the quality of their Himalayan yak milk, when all people really want is a great tasting cup at a fair price. We decided to poke fun at the madness and show all of the ridiculous things McDonald’s could do to talk about the quality of their product if they were as pretentious as everyone else, but they don’t.

‘McCafé hits the competition right in the beans’

– Ad Week

After launching with TVC and cinema ads, we expanded the campaign into print and OOH, focusing on the kind of fancy foodie magazines hipsters get their stylish beards in a spin for. A series of three overly stylised press ads, featuring our take on the various quality proof points McCafé could go about, but don’t. As well as bold OOH with no nonsense messaging.

‘McDonald’s roasts coffee snobs’

– The Drum

We followed up with a series of radio spots that borrowed from the OTT world of coffee advertising to deliver the kind of quality message only McCafé can get away with. Whether that’s a deep, authoritative voiceover, or a silky smooth, sensual voiceover – we pulled out all the tricks to roast the industry.

Online, we took over news feeds with a whole bunch of posts designed to appear as the kind of content you’d expect from one of those snobby coffee brands. We also re-skinned the McDonald’s website and Insta feed to show what they could look like if we were as pretentious as the rest of the industry.

Of course, the campaign wouldn’t be complete without a cheeky dig at that famous American chain… you know who. We took over one McDonald’s restaurant in a trendy part of London for a morning, placing bespoke sleeves on every cup we served, so crew could hand write customers names after each order. Because what says we get you like misspelling your name?

Featured on:
Results to date:

Feel Good Marketing Awards ‘Best coffee marketing’ / Shots ‘Ad of the week’ / Campaign ‘Ad of the day’ / Ad Age ‘Editors Pick’ / David Reviews ‘5 Stars’ / Featured on ‘Best Ads On TV’ / Featured in Ad Week / Featured in Little Black Book