Brands collaborating with celebrities to boost sales is not a new tactic. It happens all the time. We’re no strangers to seeing fans queue up to meet their idols, or just to grab the latest merchandise. We know celebrity collaboration works, but why does it work? Specifically, why is the collaboration between fast food chain McDonald’s and Korean boyband BTS so successful?
PS: I’m writing this as I devour my nuggets from, you guessed it, the BTS meal.
Familiarity Begets Stronger Brand Awareness
Let’s be real. We love familiarity. This is especially true when there’s an abundance of brands for us to choose from. We subconsciously prefer brands that evoke a sense of familiarity. Celebrity collaboration works exactly because the public is familiar with them.
Heck, even though I’m not a fan of BTS, I know them.
Brand awareness is a common term we throw around in the marketing industry. And awareness starts from generating attention and interest. Nobody’s going to pay attention to me because I ain’t no BTS.
Celebrity collaboration helps by directing attention and interest to said brand.
In a 2013 study by Wei and Lu, people who are interested in specific celebrities are assumed to purposefully direct their attention to endorsed ads. In addition, well-known celebrities result in more accessible representations in memory (Erfgen et al. 2015).
In other words, consumers tend to be more interested in an advertised object when a celebrity collaboration grabs their attention. The effect is then multiplied when fans share the endorsement with their social circle, so on and so forth.
When McDonalds first announced on Twitter the launch of the BTS meal in April, fans were already responding to the tweet and retweeting it.
The official tweet from McDonalds received 193k retweets and 84k quote tweets
Fans responding to McDonalds tweet on BTS meal
More fans responding to McDonalds tweet on BTS meal
What do you mean 9-piece nugget meal? Its The BTS Meal. #BTSMeal #BTSArmy
Stronger Brand Recall
What’s the fast food chain that gave free Hello Kitty dolls with every meal ah? The one people queue from 4am! Snatch like mad that one!
Oh, you mean McDonalds.
Picture Credit: The New Paper. McDonalds x Hello Kitty collaboration in 2019
Yea, no one’s going to forget that collaboration. The reason for the strong brand recall is because the collaboration evoked emotions. I’m not going to lie. Watching people queue up overnight for a doll tickled me.
Picture Credit: Straits Times. Snaking queues at McDonalds for Hello Kitty Carrier
Whether it’s with fictional characters or actual celebrities, people are going to remember it. And they will remember it for various reasons. Whatever the reason(s), the campaign will definitely become the talk of the town whenever there is a trigger. This creates positive brand recall and might even help with brand awareness in untapped markets.
Stronger Community Spirit
I haven’t had McDonalds in the longest time. Not since the Covid-19 lock down measures last year when I started on healthy eating. And guess what made me eat McDonalds for lunch today? McDonalds’ marketing.
I’m not going to lie. The hype over the BTS meal got me. Everyone’s talking about it and I wanted to be part of the experience.
When McDonalds first introduced the meal in April, I paid zero attention to it. To me, it felt like another gimmick. Gradually, I found myself paying more attention to tweets about the BTS meal. It was when the meal took Indonesia’s social feeds by storm, my interest level piqued.
Not only were people queueing up for the meals, there were hardcore fans creating merchandise with the food packaging. Similar content started flooding my news feed.
Boy, these merchandise are to die for. They’re SO cute. And my favourite is this:
While most of these content were user-generated, it appealed to consumers like myself. We’re no BTS fans, but it was interesting to be part of the conversation. Especially in the global fight against the pandemic, this definitely felt like a fresh breath of air.
Conclusion
Celebrity collaborations may not be a successful strategy for every brand. But in the case for McDonalds, it is definitely a winning strategy. Now I’m off to create my own BTS merchandise with my leftover food packaging.
