Marketing Decoded

Macdonald’s, one of the most valuable brands in the world, recently joined with Farmville (owned by Zynga) on Facebook for a round of in-game advertising. Mickey D’s now has his own farm, the MacFarm, and visitors who helped grow tomatoes or mustard seeds were rewarded with a Consumable.

The exposure on Farmville for Macdonald’s is huge. While Macdonald’s serves 26 million customers in the US per day, Farmville has 215 million users per month. This is a good example of an in-game branding partnership. Macdonald’s (and Zynga) correctly recognize the target audience for Farmville and saw that the possible branding and sales benefits brought about by the exposure to Macdonald’s during gameplay could be huge.