[chris]

I was watching the Buffalo Bills trounce the Jaguars this afternoon and during a break a commercial for McDonald's came on. It's where a guy is sitting on a park bench, and then a truck gets dropped on him.

During the first zoom in on the guy, "dugg.ca" is written on the bench. Later, "dugg.ca" flashes quickly on a TV screen.

I checked out the site, and it is strange. Nothing to do with McDick's as far as I can tell. Check http://www.dugg.ca and let me know if you can figure it out.

It ended up telling me that it likes Justin Timberlake, and it isn't sure about CANADA.

chris

[mrlayance]

No Idea... But I get a chance to win a trip? Probably a spam company.

[chris]

I thought it was just a junk site, but to be included in a McDonald's commercial gives it some credibility; or it is an impressive hack!

chris

[ron]

what the hell was that it wasted my time but something about a trip to brazil w/ 3 friends for f1 racing and who the hell is alex

Ron

[Ryan2]

well timberlake is a spokesperson for mcdonalds maybe thats why its about him

[jen]

What the... Weird What is with this website??

[Entropy]

From the Dugg.ca Official Rules:

Eligibility
The Game is open to eligible residents of Canada who have reached the age of majority in their Province of residence ("eligible persons"), except: (a) persons who from and after June 1, 2003 were or are directors, officers, employees or agents of McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Limited (the "Sponsor"), its franchisees, its representatives, or of any of their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates or agents including the Sponsor's advertising and marketing agencies; (b) individuals engaged in the development, production, distribution or supply of materials or prizes for this Game; and © persons who are or purport to be immediate family (defined as mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son or spouse) of any person in any of the preceding categories, regardless of where they live, and persons who reside in the same household, whether related or not, as any person in any of the preceding categories.

[beanmedic]

Fast-food king tries a different taste test

JOHN SAUNDERS AND ANDRE MAYER With reports from Alasdair McKie and Jack Kapica. Andre Mayer is a Toronto freelance writer.
Saturday, September 13, 2003
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You're watching a McDonald's commercial for a contest open to people who order fries with their meals and idly thinking, "Yeah, another selfless corporate campaign against anorexia," when you notice it. Somebody has slipped a seemingly unrelated Web address, dugg.ca, at least twice into the video.

Hackers? Corporate rebels? Who knows?

The address leads to a dark, vaguely creepy site where you exchange chat-room-style banter with a computer-controlled, Euro/English-sounding female voice.

Sexual suggestions abound. "Through the screen, I can only see your face. ... I'm lovin' it. Are you? ..... You're so close I can taste it. Will you finish what you started?" the computer inquires.

Mind your manners at the keyboard, though. "Do not make me angry," the voice warns if you mention sex. "You wouldn't like me when I am angry." Or, if you persist: "There isn't enough disinfectant in the world."

When stuck for something to say, it goes surreal: "I once sculpted a replica of the Stanley Cup out of a block of cheese. On the first subsequent occasion."

After a while, you get to the point and find that it is no attack on the system. It is the same corporate guys running yet another McDonald's contest, this one evidently aimed at eaters 18 and older with computers and time to spare.

No purchase is required and the prizes aren't bad (a week in Hawaii for you and three friends, for example). Maybe the idea is to bond with more customers outside the Happy Meals demographic or to test responses to artificial intelligence, meaning the sort of software that allows the computer to converse with you, more or less. The strategy is secret, at least until next week.

"The program's just under way and just getting rolling and we would like it to continue to roll a little bit further," said Chris Davies, director of communications for Toronto-based McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Ltd.

"You know, there are other elements of the program that are unfolding," she added. "We want them to unfold."

The commercial itself (promoting a Fries Surprise contest) is ordinary McDonald's fare except for the "dugg.ca" cues in the pictures. One is scrawled on a park bench; another flashes on a flat-screen television set shown as a prize.

On the site, the computer voice tries to enforce an age limit. The first words out of its circuits are, "It has been a long time. How old are you now?" Type a number lower than 18 and you get a conversation-ending brush-off: "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

But if you play along, you eventually learn about the contest and reach an electronic entry form, after you pass a test of sorts.

"All you have to do is say the magic word," the voice says. The word is "please." After all, this is McDonald's, as you discover when you examine the contest rules.

The site has already led to head-scratching among specialists in Web-based marketing.

"It's certainly not very consistent with the family, squeaky-clean image we've come to expect from McDonald's," said Jennifer Evans, a partner in Sequentia Communications of Toronto. "It's beyond avant-garde; it's way out in left field."

Among other things, McDonald's may want to test public acceptance of computers as possible substitutes for "that profit-sucking adolescent rite of passage," the fast-food counter clerk, she speculated. "The thing about this kind of experiment is that you can't control what the user experience is going to be, so for a company as brand-conscious as McD's, it's risky."

Sam Punnett, president of FAD Research of Toronto, compared the site to an interactive video game. "It's pretty good as those go. It's like the kind of game parser that you get in a role-playing game."

The company may hope to gauge "cross-media pickup" between television and the Internet, he said. "Generally, advertisers -- certainly the more adventurous ones -- are curious about the Web thing because they're never quite sure how effective it is."

[gratts99]

What a clever idea... puts a twist on the usual contests from MC SKIDS