McDonald’s Sweden Turns Competitors’ Packaging into App-Deals

Last year, McDonald's Sweden developed functionality in their app to allow guests to scan when they threw away their takeaway packaging in the right place; a bin. The guests that do this then get rewarded with a deal in the McDonald’s app. This was introduced as an incentive to reduce littering in Sweden. Now the functionality in the app has been developed further to also be able to scan packaging from McDonald’s competitors in Sweden. The campaign was created by NORD DDB. 

In September 2023, McDonald's launched a feature in their app where guests were rewarded with good deals when throwing away their packaging in the right place, meaning the trash bin. Since the launch, over 160 000 deals have been handed out to guests who used the app when disposing of their packaging correctly. In their new campaign 'Deal with the trash', McDonald’s updated the app to also include packaging from Burger King and the Swedish brand Max Burgers.  

In 2021, McDonald's began a collaboration with The Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works to reduce littering, something which is both harmful to the environment and costs our society large sums each year. 

"McDonald's wants to encourage and motivate our guests to do the right thing and throw away their packaging in the right place. Now that the tool has been around for a while, we saw an opportunity to develop it to include other brands as well. We hope more people will be motivated to throw their rubbish in the right place - one step towards reducing the littering of take-away packing", says Michaela Bognäs, head of marketing at McDonald's Sweden. 

The campaign will be communicated through digital channels, cinema, TV, OOH, DOOH, and print. 

"To have the tool include some of McDonald’s competitors felt like an obvious next step for this campaign. The purpose of the campaign is to maximise the amount of trash to end up in the bin, one step at a time to keep the streets royally clean", says Sofia Nordström, art director at NORD DDB.