Company: McDonald's
Campaign: What Came First?

Many well-established brands also rely on WOM marketing, both online and off. This year, in an effort to get its customers to consider chicken a breakfast food, McDonald's rolled out its "What Came First?" campaign.

Visitors to Whatcamefirst.com (Quienfueprimero.com, for its Spanish-speaking customers) could help determine whether the chicken or the egg came first via a simulated chicken-egg dance-off. Users selected the player (chicken or egg), music and series of dance steps and watched the ensuing dance-off to see which animated character would win. Users could email their dances to friends, as well as challenge friends to a dancing duel. The campaign's web component also targeted key bloggers.

Offline, the campaign included a product sampling day, man-on-the-street interviews and live street dancing. "What Came First?" resulted in nearly 11,000 blog, video, messaging and Twitter discussions, and the free chicken sandwich sample was the "13th most Googled search term on the May 15th sampling day," according to WOMMA, which awarded the campaign its Wommie award this year.