Title	MCHIVE
Brand	MCDONALD'S
Product/Service	FAST FOOD RESTAURANT
Category	A04. Travel, Leisure, Retail, Restaurants & Fast Food Chains
Entrant	NORD DDB Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation	NORD DDB Stockholm, SWEDEN
PR	NORD DDB Stockholm, SWEDEN

Name	Company	Position
Andreas Dahlqvist	NORD DDB Stockholm	CCO
Jens Welin	NORD DDB Stockholm	Senior Client Director
Jeanette Ytterman	NORD DDB Stockholm	Senior Client Manager
Stina Nyberg	NORD DDB Stockholm	Client Manager
Tobias Bergenwall	NORD DDB Stockholm	Creative Producer
Joel Ekstrand	NORD DDB Stockholm	Art Director
Petter Dixelius	NORD DDB Stockholm	Copywriter
Daniel Liljas	NORD DDB Stockholm	Graphic Designer
Fredrik Kjellström	NORD DDB Stockholm	Graphic Designer
Jesper Andersson	NORD DDB Stockholm	Communications Planner
Jonas Eriksson	NORD DDB Stockholm	Social Media & Content Manager
Kevin Beaulier	NORD DDB Stockholm	Social and Community Strategist
Susanne Johansson	NORD DDB Stockholm	PR Director
Nicklas Nilsson	NORD DDB Stockholm	Design and construction
Natan Gullström	House Agency	Photographer
Olle Lindholm	House Agency	Photographer
Christian Björnerhag	NORD DDB Stockholm	Photographer
Denice Heurlin	House Agency	Post Producer
Natan Gullström	House Agency	Editor
Christian Björnerhag	NORD DDB Stockholm	Grade
Christoffer Rönnblad	McDonald's	Marketing Director
Lisa Palm Danielsson	McDonald's	Senior Marketing Manager
Selma Felic	McDonald's Sweden	Marketing Manager
Annakarin Lewald	McDonald's Sweden	Marketing Project Manager

Why is this work relevant for PR?

McHive made a small local sustainability initiative world famous. The tiny beehive restaurant with a big purpose made people around the world put social media pressure on their local McDonald’s to expand the initiative and start putting beehives on their rooftops.

Background

Since two years back, McDonald’s Sweden’s creative platform is “Big enough to make a difference” which has a big focus on the positive butterfly effect that comes when a big brand starts making moves in the right direction. For this brief, the brand wanted to highlight sustainability work that is done locally by its franchisees and see what initiatives could be scaled up. In this case, we found out about a franchisee in southern Sweden who had started to use her restaurant rooftops to house beehives.The objective of the campaign was to create attention around the initiative in a way that people would engage with, share and spread the word. And inspire more franchisees to join the cause.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

McHive is a fully functioning beehive in the shape of a miniature McDonald’s restaurant. It can house more than 20 000 guests. It was designed in co-operation with one of Sweden’s best set designers and a professional beekeeper to make sure the bees would enjoy their stay in the McHive. Attention to detail was key, the bees enter the hive through the main entrance, the restaurant also has a McDrive and seating outdoors as well as a staff entrance with a code lock on the back side. Inside, there’s a mini menu and the windows have mini posters with the latest product promotion. Our ambition was to win the internet, so attention to detail was key. The Internet does not love McDonald’s, but the internet can’t resist really, really cute thing

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

1/3 of the food we eat is dependent on bees. So it’s only natural for McDonald’s to engage in protecting the bee population. McDonald’s Sweden’s creative platform is “Big enough to make a difference”. The brand wanted to highlight sustainability work that is done locally by its franchisees and see what initiatives could be scaled up. In this case, we found out about a franchisee in southern Sweden who had started to use her restaurant rooftops to house beehives. The key message of the campaign was “Small sustainability Initiatives can make a big impact”. The target audience was the general public of Sweden, but we aimed for fame abroad as well. We hired one of Sweden’s best set designers to build the McHive and produced a film of the making of it.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

We produced a film of the making of the McHive. On World Bee Day May 20 we started seeding it on McDonald’s social media channels and sent pressreleases to relevant sites and news outlets both locally and internationally

List the results (30% of vote)

Tier 1: The story got world wide publicity in news outlets such as Fox News, Metro, Independent, The Standard. Lifestyle magazines such as High Snobiety, Hypebeast, People, Buzzfeed and TV shows in US, Russia & Asia. 98% published the video & press photos and covered McDonald´s main message that McDonald´s is working with sustainability and is big enough to make a difference. But most important the story of that honey bees need help was lift across the world. In total the story received 6 billions impressions in 80 countries.