The campaign for McDonald’s ‘Bacon Potato Pie’, ‘Hahon Hohaho Hie’, developed by the McDonald’s ‘do’ team of Beacon Communications K.K. (Representative Director and Managing Director: Floriane Tripolino) has won 18 awards this year.
McDonald’s Japan’s ‘Bacon Potato Pie’ has been a regular menu for 12 years from 1990 to 2002. It has been one of the top two most popular pies, along with the ‘Hot Apple Pie’. The product was relaunched in 2017 as a limited time offer and renamed ‘Hahon Hohaho Hie’ – how ‘Bacon Potato Pie’ would sound like when eating and huff, huffing because the pie is so hot. This was the official name of the product during the entire campaign period on the menu boards and receipts. But it was the actual ordering of the menu at the counter that sparked amusement and buzz which spread on SNS and TV news, inspiring widespread excitement among consumers who were asking whether they can “…get a Hahon Hohaho Hie by asking for a Bacon Potato Pie!?” and posting comments on the experience: “Asking for ‘Hahon Hohaho Hie’ seemed silly at first but was great fun!”
The campaign was awarded the gold medal for the Promo Lotus (BEST USE OF MERCHANDISING & IN-STORE MARKETING) category at ADFEST this March, then in August won a silver award at AD STARS: Media (Product & Service Foods) category, and in September a silver award at SPIKES ASIA for the Design (Point of Sales, Consumer Touchpoints & In-store Collateral) category, establishing wide recognition across Asia.
But it did not stop there. The campaign has now started to gain international acclaim, being awarded the silver award in November at London International Awards 2018 for the Verbal Identity: Naming category, followed immediately by the bronze award for the Bars & Cafés category at the EPICA AWARDS. These awards proved that this idea based on the insight that people huff and puff when eating a burning hot ‘Bacon Potato Pie’ and hence the product name ‘Hahon Hohaho Hie’, is universally relevant, fun and entertaining.
Tadashi Inoue, Creative Director at Beacon Communications who led the development of this campaign says, “We won many awards this year at Adfest, Spikes, ACC, London Internal Awards among others, but our initial objective and sole focus was to come up with an idea that would promote the sales of a long-standing regular menu, on how to move people to buy the Bacon Potato Pie. I knew I had accomplished my mission once I knew the campaign was selling the product and I assumed that was the end of the story but from there, we started winning so many awards which was an unexpected and pleasant surprise. I hope to continue creating ads and campaigns that bring fun and joy to people as this campaign has done.”
