Forget about watching paint dry, McCain has come up with a new way of testing (and rewarding) consumers’ patience: watching fries cook.
A new pre-roll campaign running until Oct. 11 called “The Golden Oven” is incentivizing consumers to watch pre-roll ads ranging in length from two to 10 minutes for a chance to win a “golden thing.”
The videos feature nothing but fries cooking, and if the oven “dings” at the end of the video, consumers receive a code that can be redeemed for items ranging from free fries to a golden hoverboard or gold-trimmed headphones.
The pre-roll campaign was developed by FCB Canada with UM handling the media. FCB won McCain’s digital assignment in June. It is the first campaign to be released under the brand’s “That’s golden” creative platform. “We’re hoping to get people saying ‘That looks delicious,'” said Tim Welsh, VP, managing director with FCB in Toronto.
Welsh said FCB’s internal analytics suggest that people are watching through the end of the McCain ads. “The intrigue and great potential for a prize is keeping them engaged,” he said.
The McCain ads are being served up randomly, which means consumers can’t just Google a whole bunch of McCain things in an attempt to game the system. In other words, they’ll have to earn their golden retriever statue (yep, that’s an actual prize) the hard way.
“Collectively, we felt that turning pre-rolls into lottery tickets was a fun and engaging way to increase their digital presence and be unique to McCain,” says Welsh. “It also has the benefit of being very product focused.”