McDonald's: dugg.ca
CFCN.ca: Fast-food King Tries a Different Taste

Faithful MarketingWonk reader Francis Wu writes about this weird McDonald's campaign running in Canada:

I was watching the telly today and there was this McDonald's commercial that had the URL "dugg.ca" slipped into it. I checked out the site and I was asked a series of AI-driven questions that didn't really go anywhere. So I did a little searching online, and found an article about the campaign [above].

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."

McDonald's strange artificial intelligence sweepstakes

Yes, it's definitely very weird, but the article Francis provided give the "magic word" that makes the AI bot more forthcoming: "please." It appears the AI engine is designed to weed out people who did not see the TV ad, granting access to people who ask deliberately for the contest and pass a couple confirming quiz questions. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the quite good sweepstakes prizes (trips to New Orleans, Hawaii and other destinations), are available only to Canadian residents, sort of like universal health care coverage and 180-day winters.