McCain is Canada's leading brand of fries. Awareness for the brand is virtually universal and brand equity is strong. However, their top spot is under threat due to sluggish growth and losing share to their biggest competitor. To drive sales, McCain needed to do something they have never done before: engage with Gen Z and recruit them into the category.

From the outset, this seemed like an uphill battle for the brand. Gen Z has never bought McCain (or any other kind of frozen fries) before. And since they are also in their habit-forming years, this first interaction with the McCain brand was going to be crucial in establishing a lasting relationship.

This target presented another mighty challenge. They have the lowest attention span, and they are infamous for skipping ads - 82% skip ads as fast as possible. Additionally, 69% of Gen Z physically distract themselves while an ad is playing.

The challenge was to reach Gen Z despite all obstacles, get them excited about a brand they have never bought before, and show McCain in a totally new light.

Gen Z has been dubbed as the most creative generation yet. They want brands to speak with them, not at them. So, their approach was to earn McCain attention through disruption – compel them to engage by meeting them where they are.

Despite Gen Z’s ad resistance, they realized that there was still a way to engage them. Gen Z are one of the biggest video watchers. They grew up with YouTube and access to endless video content. So, it is not surprising that 70% of Gen Z watch more than three hours of mobile video a day.
They engaged Gen Z with videos on their favourite video viewing platform, YouTube. They created video ads that completely flipped the script on Gen Z’s most hated ad format – YouTube pre-roll ads.

The McCain Golden Oven is the first ever campaign where you can win simply by watching an ad! Their first YouTube campaign took something Gen Z hates to watch – pre-roll ads – and turned them into pre-roll lottery tickets.

The McCain Golden Oven pre-roll videos came in different lengths ranging from two to 10 minutes. The contest rewarded viewers who were willing to stick around long enough for the fries to be ready. If a viewer were lucky enough to be served a winning ad and the “McCain Golden Oven” dinged, viewers could win the golden thing inside, which could be a plate of golden fries, a golden hoverboard, a Golden Retriever statue, or maybe gold-trimmed headphones!

The golden gifts were designed to match Gen Z sensibilities – effective in making someone with a ridiculously low attention span wait for almost 10 minutes to get the reward.

The core of their idea was less about inventing a new technology and more about disrupting the way an existing digital tool is being used. YouTube pre-rolls are an effective awareness tool to reach an audience. However, their idea went a step beyond. They not only made their audience aware of the McCain brand, but they also made their first interaction with McCain a fun and memorable experience. The idea was to break all benchmarks and conventions on how YouTube pre-rolls have been used to date and they were successful in doing so.

Gen Z had never bought McCain before, so they wanted to ensure that their first encounter with the brand left a lasting impression. First, their ‘That’s Golden’ platform showed how fries really are the exclamation point on any occasion. Second, Gen Z does not like being advertised to in the conventional way, so they made our ads as interactive and fun as possible. Lastly, they simulated the exact feeling of waiting for fries, watching them sizzle in the oven. They turned the sound of an oven DING! into a rallying cry for all fry fans to come together, watch the oven, and be rewarded with great prizes. The campaign was completely designed with Gen Z sensibilities in mind.

The supporting channels used: contextual digital banners – re-introduced the brand and launched our campaign, YouTube masthead – launched the pre-roll contest, and paid social posts – showcased campaign winners and their Gen Z targeted prizing.

The McCain Golden Oven campaign managed to break through to the most ad resistant and elusive audience: Gen Z. It were highly successful in engaging this hard-to-reach audience, reaching 77% of the Gen Z target. While Gen Z is known to skip ads at the first chance they get, this campaign generated over 14 million views and 50 million impressions. Over 2,000 Golden prizes were awarded, more than quadruple the amount they originally planned.

The videos were so effective that while the Gen Z attention span is only 8 seconds, they were able to hold it for 64 seconds, an exponential increase of 700%. Finally, the audience not only watched the sizzling fries in the Golden Oven, but they also generated over 953,000 engagements.

This campaign disrupted the pre-roll ad format. They were able to innovate and find a way to be culturally relevant to their target audience. The implementation was so unique that even Google took notice, complimenting them on how their campaign goes against their pre-roll best practices.