Down on the farm: Faustino De Los Santos

McDonald's Winds Up for Iced-Coffee Pitch
Local Ballplayers
Will Be Featured
In Chicago Ads
By JANET ADAMY
May 1, 2007; Page B7

In a sign of how it is democratizing upscale coffee drinks, McDonald's is using Chicago Cubs and White Sox players to pitch a new line of iced-coffee drinks throughout the Windy City this summer.

The fast-food chain this week will begin selling plain, vanilla and hazelnut iced coffees at 700 locations in and around Chicago. The drinks have been sold in some outlets in New York, Boston and other cities for a few months. To promote the drinks, McDonald's has displayed coffee mugs frozen in ice in Seattle and passed out free coffee at Boston locations.

The move is part of a bigger effort at McDonald's to turn the world's largest restaurant chain into a destination for drinks, not just food. Since its founding, McDonald's beverage line-up has consisted mostly of milkshakes and Coca-Cola Co. sodas that complement its hamburgers and french fries.

See new ads from McDonald's for iced coffee, broadcast in Chicago, that use the cross-town baseball rivalry between the Cubs and White Sox as a plotline. (May 1)
But the growth of Starbucks and the popularity of new noncarbonated drinks sold in bottles have prompted McDonald's to rethink its entire beverage offering. In a few restaurants, McDonald's is testing noncola drinks in bottles made by PepsiCo and other companies, and it is selling a full line of cappuccinos and lattes at outlets in Michigan.

"We look at the beverage business as a tremendous opportunity," says Don Thompson, president of McDonald's USA. "Our goal is to move from strictly beverages as an accompaniment...to beverages being more of a destination."

The Chicago iced-coffee campaign will heavily market a product that hasn't seen a lot of traditional big-budget advertising. McDonald's plans to pitch the drinks by putting ads on the public transit system and at concert venues as well as running a full slate of television commercials, particularly during programs geared toward young adults. It also plans to put the ads on cocktail napkins inside Chicago bars this summer and pass out iced coffee samples at the Accenture Chicago Triathlon and other races.

Starbucks, by comparison, does very little traditional advertising. Starbucks spent $38.5 million on advertising last year, compared with $781.7 million across the menu at McDonald's, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Rival Dunkin' Donuts, which sells specialty coffees and launched a big TV ad campaign last year, spent $107.9 million in 2006, according to TNS.

Publicis Groupe's Leo Burnett created 15- and 30-second television spots for the McDonald's iced coffees that play off Chicago's crosstown baseball rivalry. In one spot, Cubs catcher Michael Barrett lays mousetraps beside the bed of White Sox right fielder Jermaine Dye, who climbs out of bed only to get his toes snapped.

In another, White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski sneaks up on Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano while he's asleep and waxes off his left eyebrow. "Wake up the rivalry, and wake up to McDonald's new iced coffee," the ads say.

I'm sure Leo Durocher and Eddie Stanky are rolling over in their respective graves - fraternization for the almighty dollar!