Rhys Mathewson + Robo Chicken unveil truth about Maccas’ eggs via DDB NZ and Mango

When McDonald’s announced it was moving to free range eggs in 2015, it knew it would probably attract the typical crowd of cynics and sceptics. As it moved towards reaching 100 percent transition to free range it decided to front foot the trolls and do its own undercover exposé via DDB NZ, using New Zealand’s first cybernetic chicken. 

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Chief investigator and chicken wrangler, comedian Rhys Mathewson, poses the question ‘what better way to find what it’s like to be a free range chicken, than to be the chicken.’ He sends his plucky Robo Chicken undercover to infiltrate Otaika Valley Farm, one of McDonald’s free range egg suppliers. The truth Robo Chicken discovers will shock many. It turns out the eggs McDonald’s uses are very free, and very rangey.

Says Simon Kenny, head of communications, McDonald’s: “Having opened up a conversation with Kiwis with the Our Food. Your Questions campaign, we knew there would always be people who didn’t believe that Macca’s really was using free range eggs. We also knew that any content we created had to be entertaining. Egg puns have been flying around the business since we decided to lead the market and move to free range eggs, and the DDB creatives came up with a clucking great script.”

With Mango managing the project, and working with 90 seconds to produce the content, Robo Chicken is currently working to convince even the biggest conspiracy theorists that McDonald’s is actually using quality New Zealand free range eggs.

Says Kenny: “We’ve seen recently some serious questions asked about the legitimacy of some free range eggs in New Zealand. We think Robo Chicken is eggs-actly the kind of content we need to show that we’ve cracked the issues of ensuring the eggs we use are certified free range. No egg-ceptions.”

Robo Chicken, created by the team at Rollercoaster, recently stared in an activation delivery All Day Breakfast to media houses thanks to its latest accessory, Robo Trailer.

McDonald’s uses over 13 million eggs each year, which is currently around seven percent of all the free range eggs sold in New Zealand.

Concerned Kiwi: Rhys Mathewson

Sharnan Pitcher – Carpenter