McDonald’s in dot-com holiday promotion

Online travel and leisure provider Lastminute.com is linking up with McDonald’s for a joint marketing campaign supported by television advertising.

The promotion, which launches today (Wednesday), will run on McDonald’s flagship product, Big Mac, and will offer the fast-food giant’s customers the chance to win specially created holidays to destinations such as Florida, Las Vegas and New York, and Africa.

The campaign was created by McDonald’s retained sales promotion agency, The Marketing Store.

A McDonald’s TV campaign, created by Leo Burnett and breaking next week, and sponsorship of Virgin Radio’s breakfast show will support the tie-up. Online activity includes promotion in Lastminute.com’s weekly newsletter, which is mailed to more than 2.1 million UK subscribers.

Lastminute.com has been on the acquisition trail. In July last year it acquired rival Travelprice.com and in November it bought eXhilaration, a UK-based “experience” company. The dot-com has also expressed an interest in buying MyTravel, which this week announced 700 job cuts in the UK.

Lastminute.com is on the hunt for a marketer to co-ordinate its activities across Europe more effectively.

In September it announced its first profit before tax and financial charges, of &£300,000 – compared with a loss of &£7.4m over the same period last year.

In the same month Lastminute claimed to have 6.4 million subscribers, making it the number-one independent travel European travel site across five countries.