McDonald’s Sweden – “Deal with the Trash”
Submitted by OMD Sweden
Case Study Summary:
In response to growing frustration over littering in Sweden—where fast-food packaging contributes to 15% of street waste—McDonald’s Sweden, with OMD, reimagined its loyalty program. Instead of rewarding purchases, it rewarded responsible behavior: properly disposing of trash—even competitors’ packaging—could now earn consumers a McDonald’s deal.
To make this vision scalable and seamless, McDonald’s built a custom AI image-recognition tool within its app that could verify correctly disposed waste via a smartphone photo. It recognized packaging from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Max Burgers, and instantly rewarded users for responsible disposal.
The campaign combined geo-targeted outdoor and digital ads, interactive cinema games, and podcast endorsements to make sustainability fun, not guilt-inducing. The result? 3 tons of litter removed, significant brand lift among young Swedes, and a 6.8x ROI.
Key Insights
- Guilt fatigue was real. Younger Swedes cared about sustainability but tuned out finger-wagging messages.
- AI made behavior change easy. It removed friction and ambiguity while offering instant gratification.
- Inclusivity elevated impact. Accepting competitors’ trash showed McDonald’s as a community-driven brand.
- Gamification worked. A national problem was reframed as a fun, rewardable challenge.
Why Was AI Used?
AI was essential to:
- Recognize packaging from multiple brands with high accuracy
- Validate user-submitted images in real-time
- Operate smoothly across different lighting conditions and disposal scenarios
- Enable mass-scale, behavior-based rewards without manual verification
Without AI, this idea would have been too complex to scale or too slow to be engaging.
How Did AI Work with Human Creativity and Insights?
- The human insight: People want rewards, not reprimands, even for good behavior.
- The creative leap: Litter as currency.
- AI’s role: Make it seamless, real-time, and scalable.
Together, AI and human thinking transformed civic responsibility into a satisfying and playful experience, reinforcing positive behavior at the moment it happened.
Would the Initiative Have Been Possible Without AI?
No. Manual verification or barcode scanning would have been:
- Too slow
- Too easy to cheat
- Too limited (unable to recognize trash from different brands)
AI was the enabler of scale, speed, and trust, making the behavior shift not just possible—but enjoyable.
