Anyone with kids knows they could do with a bit of a ‘pick-me-up’ on those wintry morning weekend sport runs. And who better to lend a hand than some of today’s sporting superstars.

With that in mind, Gemba’s latest campaign for McDonald’s brought to life the warming comfort a McCafé coffee can play in anyone’s winter morning routine. And the drawcard? Win a famous sportsperson as your own personal ‘Weekend Sidekick’, simply by purchasing a coffee at McCafé.

As our resident ‘Weekend Sidekicks’, the likes of Christian Petracca, Kate Moloney and Scott Jamieson all pitched in to make the campaign a reality, helping some sporting families out with shepherding their kids to where they needed to go. We saw our celebrity ‘house staff’ wake the kids up, bundle them into the car, and set off to each of their weekend sporting games.

Just like that all-important jolt of caffeine and flavour from a McCafé coffee on a cold morning, Christian, Scott and Kate provided the perfect ‘pick-me-up’, each of them playing the role of personal assistant/ part-time kid-wrangler with aplomb. They even organised a cheeky McCafé ‘top-up’ during the morning rush to the sports fields.

The brief centred around driving McCafé coffee sales, encouraging the purchase of a coffee via the MyMacca’s app. Sure enough, it turned out lots of coffee-loving parents loved the idea of pressganging a trio of elite athletes into being their kids’ very own Weekend Sidekick.

The campaign included three 30-second social spots for each star, a 15-second for Christian Petracca, and a host of digital assets deployed across McDonald’s and rightsholder channels.