Opportunity
adidas’s “made Originals” campaign demanded a finale that would be both a relevant cultural moment and a celebration of the brand’s heritage. Centered in London, the city needed to permeate the experience.
According to the National Literacy Trust, a UK-based charitable organization supported by McDonald’s, nearly 1 in 10 (9.7%) adolescents in 2022 who received free school meals did not have a book of their own at home. With this lack of accessibility to books for young students in mind, McDonald’s and tms set out to create “I Can Dream Big,” the latest iteration of the global Happy Meal® Readers program which builds off its original principles originating in 2001. The series consists of aspirational children’s books that encourage children to fall in love with reading with the help of fun and relatable storylines, accompanied by engaging new digital elements, activity sheets, and more.
A seminal partnership was formed between tms, McDonald’s, and the Little People Big, Dreams brand, growing the partnership from a brief book series to strategizing a compelling new global Happy Meal Readers program. McDonald’s and tms strategized the concept of “I Can,” an idea centered around empathy, putting an emphasis on relatable stories with inspirational figures while giving children easy access to read with every Happy Meal. Commencing in August of 2022, the books touch on a variety of interests and lessons, offered as a choice alongside the Happy Meal® toy.
The Happy Meal® Readers x Little People, Big Dreams partnership was thoughtfully designed with families in mind. Using the scale of the McDonald’s system, all partners came together to place books in the hands of children and families to make reading fun through moments of togetherness.
The Happy Meal Reader initiative is based on three major pillars: entertainment, empowerment, and democratization. These pillars guided us towards creating accessible books that educate, motivate, and empower readers, while also providing storylines that are eye-opening yet relatable.
Using qualitative and quantitative analysis in nine global markets, we selected engaging and confidence-boosting stories that teach important life lessons with engaging illustrations to keep little readers captivated. Through McDonald’s research, we found the most successful themes are animals, nature, and science. Other storylines range from athletics to social initiatives, including titles like “I Can Be a Sports Star,” “I Can Be a Champion of Change,” and “I Can Be a Talented Musician.” While these books are designed as condensed versions to fit within the Happy Meal packaging, full-versions of the books are available for purchase in retail book stores.
McDonald’s and tms also created digital activities and games which correspond with the Happy Readers series that can be accessed by scanning the QR Code on the Happy Meal Readers Book, extending the storylines and education beyond the books to increase engagement and make young readers feel as they are a part of the protagonist’s adventure!
The readers have proven to be a global success, with 17 books published in 2022 and 41 diverse role models featured in over 100 countries. Since 2001, tms and McDonald’s have been passionate about making books accessible for children and have produced nearly 1 billion books as of 2023, making McDonald’s one of the largest children’s books distributors in the world. Through the “I Can Dream Big” Happy Meal Readers initiative since 2022, McDonald’s has successfully put over 50 million books into the hands of young readers.
The tms–designed, in-store, brand platform identity has been a feature of over 100 Blackstore shops since the beginning of 2022. Therefore, there was an opportunity to evolve this creative and build a new activation as part of the Back-to-School campaign for 2022. tms created a theme, shopping mechanic and packaging that would motivate sales and secure success.
Our holistic, 360° approach, ensured that the “Get into the Game” experience had an equally strong presence across social channels and in person at the point of sale.
To drive hype and amplify the activation, we created a social media campaign that encouraged customers to shout about their experience online. Our one-month campaign was executed through Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, with both organic and sponsored posts.
At the same time, tms designed a 100% immersive operation to animate the point of sale, surfing on the many promotions underway over the period and offering combinations of promotions to the most engaged customers. The sales area is personalized in the colors of the operation to guarantee a memorable experience: giant game console, akilux, posters, stickers, giant game dice, tie and many other POS.
The operation recorded an increase in in-store traffic and a significant increase in sales compared to last year.
The social media campaign made it possible to reach a larger demographic that would not normally come into contact with the brand, boosting engagement and fame.
With the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis, tms and McDonald’s wanted to bring customers some much-needed cheer. Enter ‘Winning Sips’. We set out to create a campaign that would create feel-good moments for customers, engaging them through attention-grabbing promotions and exciting visuals to showcase McDonald’s generosity and invoke a sense of joy.
tms developed the strategy for ‘Winning Sips’ based on McDonald’s value framework that centres on showing generosity to customers. Working cross-functionally to bring together technology, marketing, and sourcing, we brought to life the creative conception, in-app experience, packaging, and merchandise. At the heart of the campaign, the ‘virtual sips’ mechanic combines the drama of a “thirst-quenching first sip” with the chance to win millions of feel-good prizes.
The uplifting visual identity tapped into a feeling of joy that can be seen across packaging, in-store communications, and in the McDonald’s app. tms built a robust in-app experience which served as a portal to millions of prizes, from instant win food prizes to exclusive Coca-Cola branded merchandise, and up to £10,000 cash. All this was up for grabs following a medium or large soft drink purchase.
McDonald’s wanted to provide customers with some light hearted fun, and reward them with something extra when they visit us, and what better way of doing that than ‘Winning Sips’. We look forward to launching four weeks of sipping, slurping and a chance to win.
tms set out to create a FW 23/24 kit launch campaign for the adidas-sponsored Juventus Football club. Long hailed the “Bianconeri” for the club’s black and white striped uniforms, we saw an opportunity to bring this strong visual motif to life with a film and campaign photography that honored and celebrated the club’s rich Italian heritage and loyal fanbase – dubbed the “heard”.
Capitalizing on the untapped potential of club kits as cultural and streetwear icons, we collaborated with adidas to make this vision come to life.
tms used renowned Italian imagery as a creative starting point, merging references such as Paolo Sorrentino’s surrealist film, The Great Beauty, with Juventus’ core values and design hallmarks. The iconic Bianconeri stripes are a thread that runs throughout the video and photography, establishing a clear, captivating, and unique visual identity for the brand, setting it apart from competitors. This elevated presentation of the FW 23/24 kit was an expression of the club’s individuality to inspire positive sentiment, create hype, galvanize fans, and ultimately boost adidas sales.
Leading the creative direction and production, tms provided Bianconceri fans with an immersive tour of Villa Perosa, just a 25-minute drive from the football club’s training grounds in Italy. Directed by Theodore Guelat and photographed by Dali Geralli, the campaign cast Juventus players, legends, and fans in unexpecting roles, featuring stars like Alessandro Del Piero, Danilo, Lisa Boattin, Kenan Yildiz, Dean Huijsen.
While the campaign is inspired by classic Italian surrealism, we balanced this with modern techniques such as 3D scanning techniques and aerial views of the estate. The zebra print is featured throughout, from the top hats, interiors, and jerseys to an actual horse dressed as a zebra. The end scene pans out to a portrait of the Juventus “family” featured in the film, symbolizing the power of the Juventus fandom and demonstrating that success is built off years of teamwork between the club and its fans.
adidas’s “made Originals” campaign demanded a finale that would be both a relevant cultural moment and a celebration of the brand’s heritage. Centered in London, the city needed to permeate the experience.
tms set out to create an experience that would fully immerse adidas’s community in a brand world that was more than just a party. We mashed up the past and present by paying homage to iconic brand moments while partnering with local communities to show what “made Originals” means to them and to provide an authentic voice that resonates with Gen Z consumers.
Taking over subterranean West London venue Ambika P3, tms transformed the space with a bespoke creative identity that celebrated the city’s aesthetic and vibe. The whole event was live streamed on TikTok, allowing the public to browse and purchase classic products. Working alongside key brand partners, Blondey McCoy and Gary Aspden, we conceptualized and brought to life a host of immersive experiences. These included exclusive product drops, customization workshops, skate demos, interactive gaming, digital competitions, and previously unseen archival exhibitions. Visitors were also transported to a digital representation of the “made Originals” world through a personalized 3D avatar and an exclusive FORTNITE world — playable alongside London gaming collective Black Girl Gamers. The two-day events came to an energetic close with performances from established British rapper slowthai, DJ collective GirlsDon’tSync, and South London rapper Che Lingo. We used the adidas CONFIRMED app as a digital “host” for the event, delivering hyper-local push notifications to inform attendees of what was happening, offer exclusive product raffles within the space, and manage all ticketing, and communicate pre/post event.
The team created a jaw-dropping experience giving Gen Z London the ultimate immersion into the world of ‘made Originals.’ adidas has played such an important role in shaping London subcultures around fashion, music, and sports. It was a privilege to reflect on this heritage and look to the future by collaborating with creators at the forefront of their communities.
The physical peel, central to McDonald’s MONOPOLY game play, has always been well-loved, but its joy is short-lived. Our opportunity was to build a wider-reaching, longer-term, more immersive brand and digital experience so that consumers could continue playing and winning beyond the physical peel.
Customers have always loved the on-pack peel, however this year, instead of peeling to reveal a potential loss, Double Peel extended the game in the McDonald’s app – transforming customers’ phones into a MONOPOLY® gameboard. Players still had the opportunity to peel the label on their promotional food item for a potential Instant Win, but now they could also scan a property code to complete sets in the McDonald’s app. Each property banked in the MONOPOLY® Wallet gave players another chance to win an array of prizes via the Digital Peel in the app. tms brokered contracts between McDonald’s and over 20 prize partners, including BMW, Paramount+, TUI, JD Sports, See Tickets, Photobox, Wrappz, Zavvi, Go Ape, GLOSSYBOX, SkullCandy and AO.com. Customers had the chance to win everything from a new Mini Cooper, to shopping vouchers and personalized accessories.
After 16 years, we created a next-generation McDonald’s MONOPOLY® game, inspiring customers to double down on what they love and created a campaign that magnified the double feel-good feeling of the peel in a fun and engaging way. By extending the promotion into a more immersive app experience, we not only gave customers additional ways to play and win but also fostered high engagement making this year’s MONOPOLY® the biggest and best to date.
By extending our popular MONOPOLY® promotion at McDonald’s into a more immersive app experience, we’ve not only given customers additional ways to play, we’ve also built a wider, longer-term engagement in the game over the 6-week period – along with more ways to win. Doubling the fun for everyone.
Find a compelling way to drive sales, guest counts, and digital engagement from a successful long-standing program.
Our research showed that guests were getting tired of collecting duplicate game stamps. With the intent of driving renewed excitement in stamp collecting, we gave every game stamp additional value online.
Within tms’s digital experience we introduced the Bonus Chest. With every 5 game stamps entered, the Bonus Chest unlocked up to 8 exclusive partner discounts. We continued to exceed sales, guests counts, and check benchmarks from the previous year. Additionally, the game website continues to see high engagements with all aspects of the game.
Noticing a pattern of decreasing visits to its restaurants during the month of October, McDonald’s wanted to introduce a month-long program that would tempt customers back. We made it our objective to turn that around by crafting an experience that drove guest counts, reinvigorated sales, and boosted brand affinity.
tms put a new twist on the standard sweepstakes promotion with an exciting Halloween campaign that drove guests back into stores.
We developed a bold program called “Trick. Treat. Win!” which leveraged a timely Halloween theme and a chance at instant-win prizes to delight customers. And for the first time ever, our program gave customers the opportunity to choose the prizes they won. As well as owning the campaign strategy, our creative identity featured across stores, digital channels, and the campaign packaging.
In a saturated market, it was time to break the mold and establish X20 as the fastest boot in the market for football creators.
Inspired by the speed of the X20 boot, we designed an experience centered around the idea of “ghosting”. The idea was that the boot’s unique Carbitex technology will help any player speed past (ghost) their opponents. It was essential we created a visually impactful experience that would both tell the product story and promote mass engagement.
Multi-sensory installations across the whole adidas store highlighted the design, features, and materials of the X20 boot, demonstrating that when all are harnessed they create the speed that the X franchise is renowned for. tms created a central, show-stopping speed hub, which introduced the X20 and the benefits of Carbitex. It featured an interactive “ghost wall” offering consumers the chance to “see” ghost speed as they passed through the space. We also offered the opportunity for consumers to get their hands on with the boot and put their speed to the test on our custom X running track. A highly shareable installation inspired by Mo Salah’s hero creative offered a visualization of him “ghosting” defenders as he runs in his X20 boots.