McDonald's Netherlands

Objective

In the darkest month of the year, McDonald’s Netherlands set out to brighten December with its iconic 'Cadeau Kalender'. The goal was simple but ambitious: create daily excitement through a digital advent calendar that transformed online curiosity into physical restaurant visits. By partnering with Adsquare, McDonald’s didn't just track views, they measured the exact 'footfall impact' (i.e. physical restaurant visits) of their TikTok strategy.

While the campaign successfully raised awareness for the 'Cadeau Kalender', the primary KPIs were offline conversions. McDonald’s needed to prove that their TikTok media spend was directly responsible for putting people in seats across the Netherlands, rather than just riding the wave of natural holiday footfall.

Solution

To realize their objectives, McDonald’s Netherlands teamed up with their agency partner, OMD Netherlands, to launch a high-impact, multi-layered campaign from late November through December. The strategy focused on a steady "burst" of daily surprises and was built up of three main tactics.

First, McDonald’s structured its media mix to ensure both maximum reach and consistent daily engagement. They used premium TopView ads to capture immediate attention at the start of the user journey, establishing massive daily reach. To sustain momentum, they paired these with highly engaging In-Feed Ads and Interactive Add-ons, creating a "daily door" experience that kept the excitement of the advent calendar fresh and top-of-mind as users scrolled through their For You feeds.

Second, they prioritized a creative strategy built specifically for the platform. The video assets were designed TikTok-first: vertical, fast-paced, and highly energetic. By showcasing the daily rewards in a short, snappy format, the creatives naturally built up anticipation and directed users to the McDonald’s app to claim their daily festive deals.

Third, to accurately measure physical store visits, McDonald’s partnered with location intelligence platform Adsquare. To isolate the incremental impact of the campaign from normal holiday traffic, Adsquare implemented its unique methodology. This methodology uses synthetic control conditions and can take into account previous visitation behavior and external factors such as seasonality to simulate an organic baseline. By comparing actual observed visits against this baseline, McDonald's was able to isolate the incremental net visitation uplift driven solely by their TikTok ads.

Results

The campaign produced exceptional results for McDonald’s Netherlands, proving TikTok's power to bridge the gap between digital discovery and real-world action.

Most notably, the campaign generated a 6.6% net lift in store visits, proving that TikTok didn't just follow the holiday rush—it actively accelerated it. This lift translated directly into 56,465 incremental restaurant visits that would not have happened otherwise. Even more impressive was the efficiency of the campaign, which delivered a remarkably low €1.66 Cost Per Incremental Visit (CPIV).

Beyond physical footfall, the campaign achieved massive scale, delivering over 129 million impressions and reaching 5.5 million unique users. It also achieved a 3.1% lift in ad recall, successfully breaking through the intense advertising noise of the peak December shopping season.

Ultimately, McDonald’s Netherlands demonstrated that by combining platform-native creative, interactive ad formats, and precision third-party measurement, QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) brands can turn digital enthusiasm into measurable, high-efficiency physical results.