Fast food giant McDonald?s is promoting its new Dollar Menu at breakfast via a rich-media mobile advertising campaign.

Expandable banner ads are running within The Weather Channel iPhone application with the tagline, ?The Dollar Menu is now at breakfast.? 

?Our rich-media expandable ad units offer a breakthrough creative execution,? said Craig Etheridge, vice president of mobile advertising sales at The Weather Channel, Atlanta.

?We provide advertisers the chance to push the envelope creatively on smartphones, with functionality and content built into the apps that benefit users and advertisers alike ? opening the doors for expandable ads, click-to-video, GPS and more ? while keeping the best user experience in mind,? he said.

McDonald?s is the world's largest burger chain, serving nearly 47 million customers daily.

The Weather Channel and Weather.com provide a national and local weather forecast for cities worldwide.

The Weather Channel Companies includes The Weather Channel television networks, and products for radio, newspapers, digital cable services, and interactive television. Digital properties include Weather.com and products for broadband and wireless platforms.

Here is a screen grab of the McDonald's banner within The Weather Channel application:

I?m Lovin? It
Consumers who click on the McDonald?s ad are routed to a landing page where they can find out more about the breakfast Dollar Menu.

Additionally, consumers can enter their ZIP code to find out which McDonald?s closest to them is offering the breakfast Dollar Menu.

Here is screen grab of the landing page:

Here is a screen grab of the My McDonald's search results:

Already on marketing menu
McDonald?s is not new to the mobile space.

In September, McDonald?s let consumers vote for their favorite burgers via an SMS poll that was held at the Sprite Step Off, a nationally televised step-off competition.

The company launched a competition called Flavor Battle that took place on the main stage at the Sprite Step Off events and audience members voted for their favorite McDonald's burger and DJ via text message.

Every text message counted as an entry into the national McDonald's Flavor Battle sweepstakes, along with voting on http://www.365Black.com (see story).

One month prior, in August, McDonald's launched its first mobile marketing campaign that specifically targeted the Hispanic demographic while on the go.

Customers who visited a McDonald's restaurant on Mondays between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. were able to get a free seven-ounce Iced McCafé Mocha or an eight-ounce Hot McCafé Mocha. The campaign ran through Aug. 21 (see story).

Also, the launch last year of the McDonald's M Burger in France stood out for its innovative use of mobile advertising.

The fast food franchise ran banner ads promoting the M Burger on the Microsoft Advertising Mobile Media network. The brand used animated banner formats instead of traditional mobile banners (see story).

Sunny side up for breakfast
For the current campaign McDonald?s is trying to build hype around the Breakfast Dollar Menu via mobile advertising in a highly trafficked weather application.

The application has been downloaded almost 10 million times.

?Mobile customers have responded to superior products and services from The Weather Channel,? Mr. Etheridge said. ?With almost 10 million downloads, The Weather Channel is the top weather application in the Apple App Store, and was the No. 1 free app overall of 2009.?