Ad Campaigns
RAPP India launches McDonalds Royale Burger through McDElections campaign
MUMBAI: McDonald’s and RAPP India have recently launched the #McDElections campaign for the launch of two premium burgers – the Grilled Chicken Royale and the McPaneer Royale, in their menu.
Phase 1 of the campaign kicked off with all the McDonald’s foods seemingly electing the leader amongst their candidates. The cast included a number of participating candidate burgers each with an interesting personification and McDonald’s foods that play their supporters. With the just to be launched Royale Burger duo threatening to sweep the polls.
Each of the candidates had a manifesto (on www.mcdelections.in) that was designed to help them win the McDElections in the light of the threat from the new Royale Burger Duo. The prelaunch viral video, done for Phase 1, mimics a classic TV interview of two of the candidates McSpicy Paneer and Chicken Maharaja Mac.
Facebook posts and banners set up the context of the McDElections with the candidates and their supporter foods all campaigning for victory.
But the inevitable happens, and the Royale Burger Duo wins the McDElections and forms the McDSenate. And the campaign moves to phase 2.
The Phase 2 Viral video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoJMVxrH8wI) had the first interview of the Royal Burger Duo after they swept into power. The Royale Duo talk about their manifesto and the many “Right to Taste” bills that they intend to pass like ‘Burgers must be eaten with two hands’ and how one should enjoy eating a burger like a king, and savour each bite. But even as they have come into power the voices of dissent can be heard and the Chicken Maharajah Mac and the Spicy Front are quite vocal about the fact that they will either give the Royale Duo a tough time from the opposition or skeptical about how long the Royale Duo will last in Power.
Two interesting aspects of this campaign are the Breaking News section and the Twitter campaign.
The Breaking News section which constantly refreshed captured the action in the McDElections eg – ‘McVeggie Burger calls for all Veggies to unite in a bid to fend off the Royale Challenge’ or ‘Royale Duo mobbed in Mumbai’. It also got featured on Facebook and on www.mcdelections.in
The twitter campaign drew inspiration from the action in the Lok Sabha Elections using #mcdelections tweets crafted around real life stories of the current elections.
The latest from McDonald’s India is the ‘Know Your Royale Burger’ contest to check how well the people know their Royale Burgers. There will be 40 lucky winners announced everyday, who can win their Royale burger vouchers.
The McDonald’s India Twitter handle (@mcdonaldsindia) will also launch the ‘Right To Taste (RTT)’ and many more exciting competitions shortly.
Says Rameet Arora, Senior Director Marketing & Menu Management, McDonalds India “Capturing the mood of the customer and the buzz in the air is always a trick that elevates campaigns and gives them life. The McDelection campaign did just that! The Royale burgers launch got a fitting launch platform through this highly engaging and interactive digital campaign”.
Says Venkat Mallik, President RAPP India, “The McDElections campaign has provided us with a fantastic platform that helps us set up the food value of current and new Royale Burgers from McDonald’s mixed in with the spice that the election brings in. The wide cast of characters with 7 candidates and many supporters has helped us build a property which can potentially go on for a really long time ahead. The campaign lends itself extremely well to all parts of the digital landscape and we have used Facebook, Viral Videos, Youtube, a Microsite, Twitter and Banners”
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
