McDonald’s intentional spelling errors drive charity tin success
Howard Lake | 7 November 2017 | News
How can you draw attention to charity collecting tins on a busy counter at a fast food restaurant? McDonald’s Egypt managed it, by including some intentional spelling errors.
The collecting boxes were part of McDonald’s Egypt’s ongoing support for an education development project in the Cairo slum area of Ezbet Khairallah.
At first the spelling mistakes and collecting boxes went largely unnoticed. But soon customers started noticing them, photographing them and criticising McDonalds via social media. Some of them pointed out the irony of spelling mistakes by McDonalds in a campaign for an education charity.
SEE ALSO: Use spelling mistakes in META tags (18 July 1999)
The fast food company’s responses, however, made it clear that these weren’t genuine mistakes. In response to the criticism and mockery, McDonalds’ social media accounts replied: ““Disturbed by the spelling mistakes? You have the right to, but not all people have the same chance in education. Watch the video to know more.”
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ضايقتك الغلطات الإملائية؟
ليك حق، بس مش كل الناس عندها نفس الفرصة في التعليم
اتفرج على الڤيديو واعرف أكتر#لو_مضايقاك_غيرها#بالباقي_تعليم pic.twitter.com/YJmnR98NBc— McDonald's Egypt (@McDonaldsEgypt) October 26, 2017
As well as the educational element of the campaign, McDonald’s was also supporting the education charity financially by donating a percentage of its Happy Meal sales.
SEE ALSO: Corporate fundraising tip no. 2: check and double-check your spelling (22 September 2011)
The video that revealed McDonald’s strategy achieved 1.1 million views within 12 hours, and has notched up over five million since then.
The campaign was developed by creative agency FP7/CAI and digital agency Digital Republic.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BaqnNdhjbTo/
- Have you tried intentional or humorous spelling errors in your fundraising campaigns? With what results?
- Do you know what the most common misspellings of your charity’s name are? Have you registered one or more as a domain name to capture those errors and redirect them to your website?
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.