2025 Winner

McDonald’s in Quebec found a way to reach a hard-to-interrupt audience: developers who are notorious for skipping lunch. Instead of pushing a traditional ad, McDonald’s launched “Eat the Code,” a gamified digital campaign built just for devs. Hosted on a dedicated website, the experience challenged developers to sift through endless lines of code to uncover hidden McDonald’s promo codes. Along the way, they encountered Easter eggs, such as hacked menu recipes, a memory game and behind-the-scenes content. The audience spent an average of six minutes on the site, with the campaign tracking 91% positive feedback and a noticeable lift in DoorDash orders, proving lunch had finally been debugged.

Credits

AGENCY: Cossette
PRODUCTION HOUSE: Septième
MEDIA AGENCY: OMD
CLIENT: McDonald’s Canada

CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER, COSSETTE EAST: Anne-Claude Chénier
EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Alexandre Gadoua
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Richard Rochette-Villeneuve
CREATIVE DIRECTOR, CRAFT: Alexandre Jutras
COPYWRITERS: Nadine El-Whidi, Souléman Diallo, Sébastien Forget, Clément Ginon
ART DIRECTORS: Mehdi Sedira, Fany Thourain, Nicolas Baillargeon, Rosalie Lacroix
TEAM LEAD, DEVELOPMENT & SENIOR DEVELOPER: Jean-Louis Mainguy
FRONTEND DEVELOPER: Timothy Kotzerke
SENIOR COPYWRITER, SOCIAL: Zeina Samaha
VICE PRESIDENT, STRATEGY: Chris Bergeron
STRATEGY: Antoine Cormier, Cleo Tellier
PRODUCT OWNERS: Maria-Laura Laubenthal, Tess Wong, Natalie Azoulay
SOCIAL ANALYTICS & COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT: Farah Chaou, Hayley Green
SOCIAL ANALYTICS: Niki Coulson, Nishant Mendiratta
SENIOR DIRECTOR, LEAD DIGITAL BUSINESS: Marie-Michèle Coulombe
WEB DEVELOPMENT: Jean-Louis Mainguy, Timothy Kotzerke, Cédric Marcelly, Louis-Émile Vromet
SUPPORT, MAINTENANCE & DEPLOYMENT: Jeff Maynard, Julia Kim

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Anthony Gratton
POST-PRODUCTION COORDINATION: Océanne Langlois
VIDEO: Hugo Dubé-Rouleau
EDITING: Delphine Legault
MOTION DESIGN: Vincent Laquerre, Loïc Dubeau, Isaac Baulne
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Martin Lemay, Élisabeth Matte, Annie Turcotte

CLIENTS: Mélissa Hains, Suzanne Grondin, Noémie Duchesne, Rebecca Smart, Catherine Gao, Nezariel Scott, Fatma Othman