McDonald’s Buys Twitter’s First Globally Promoted Trend, But Did #FryFutbol Backfire?

McDonald’s went all in on social media on opening day of the FIFA World Cup, but it might not have scored the points it was hoping for. The fast food giant, promoting its augmented reality GOL! App that fires up when paired with special McDonald’s fries boxes, paid to place #FryFutbol hashtag atop Twitter’s trending widget globally. And that was Twitter’s first truly global promoted trend, Ross Hoffman, Twitter’s director of U.S. brand strategy, told TechCrunch.

McDonald’s also displayed the hashtag on field-side billboards at the São Paulo stadium where Brazil defeated Croatia, 3-1, in the World Cup opener.

So how is it doing? Well, the hashtag certainly was noticed and used. Topsy’s figures show it with more than 17,000 mentions today, and there was a hefty spike during the game. But the overall reaction on Twitter — and least English-speaking Twitter — has not been great. Of course, any time a company decides to engage in interactive advertising it’s taking a risk. And Twitter is full of people competing to see who can be the snarkiest.

Perhaps the reaction internationally was more positive, but to my eye, #FryFutbol seems to have truly baffled many. Here’s a sample of the reaction: