On its journey to rebuild connections with youthful audiences, McDonald’s has traveled into subcultures together with hip-hop, Okay-pop, anime, and streetwear. However for years, one world had fallen off the map: the magical realm of McDonaldland.
First launched in 1971, McDonaldland is a fantasy realm inhabited by model characters like Ronald McDonald, Grimace, the Hamburglar, and Mayor McCheese. Apple pies develop on bushes, hamburgers sprout from the bottom, and the lake is stuffed with Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.
McDonaldland had been absent from the model’s promoting for 22 years, however now it’s again in a significant marketing campaign from Wieden+Kennedy New York. Acquainted components stay, however the land additionally takes a brand new form each digitally and IRL. McDonald’s dove into its personal lore and historical past after seeing social posts from followers who mentioned, “I wish to go to McDonaldland.”
The McDonaldland revival is the QSR’s newest try to construct cultural relevance with each Gen Z and older audiences. The marketing campaign continues a method that faucets into actual buyer rituals and experiences, mixing nostalgia with trendy advertising and marketing strategies.
That technique is beginning to gas a turnaround. In McDonald’s newest earnings report, CEO Chris Kempczinski credited advertising and marketing and menu innovation with serving to to reboot gross sales after a yr flat or declining efficiency.
Nonetheless, there are some contemporary components to the brand new McDonaldland initiative. It’s extra immersive, borrowing techniques from tourism advertising and marketing, whereas turning the highlight on the model’s movie star standing, mentioned Jennifer “JJ” Healan, McDonald’s vice chairman of U.S. advertising and marketing, model, content material, and tradition.
“It really is a tourism marketing campaign,” Healan informed ADWEEK. “We’ve by no means leveraged our personal movie star on this manner.”
Opening doorways for followers
Impressed by Gen Z’s love of journey, the brand new McDonaldland is “designed for essentially the most participation potential,” Healan mentioned. Each side mimics the experiences and rituals of an actual trip, with video games for the journey, maps to historic landmarks, introductions to native traditions, and souvenirs to take house.
On Aug. 12, McDonald’s will host its first Instagram Stay, the place Mayor McCheese will invite everybody to find McDonaldland.
Then for the following 4 weeks, each go to to McDonald’s will likely be a visit to McDonaldland. Eating places will likely be taken over with a themed meal and milkshake, packaging coated in video games, and collectible memento kits, which spotlight completely different characters’ personalities (even their zodiac indicators) with postcards, stickers, and passports that may be scanned for a Reserving.com low cost.
Bridging the bodily and digital worlds was essential, Healan mentioned. The model partnered with Snap’s augmented actuality (AR) studio, Arcadia, to create AR lenses and video games, permitting customers to brush up on McDonaldland lore and work together with characters like Birdie and the Fry Guys.
McDonaldland may also be in Fortnite, launch a weekly YouTube sequence, and run content material throughout Meta, TikTok, and X. It’s taking up Google Maps, the Lyft app, and the United Airways app and in-flight screens.
“We wished all of the digital techniques to open as many doorways as we may for followers,” mentioned Alysha Kishan, technique director at Wieden+Kennedy New York. “It will be superb in the event that they went on their very own deep dive into the McDonaldland rabbit gap.”
In the true world, McDonald’s will present up at occasions together with the Daytona 500 race, classic clothes conference Thriftcon in Denver, and the Breakaway Music Competition in Michigan and Massachusetts.
The corporate has additionally solid sudden collaborations with different manufacturers, together with PacSun on a merch line and Away for a baggage assortment.
The marketing campaign’s centerpiece is a business encapsulating McDonald’s intention to remain true to historical past whereas refreshing its previous for a brand new era. With nods to the unique McDonaldland spot, the outdated music was remade by Toro y Moi, a music artist with Gen Z attraction.
A wild journey by means of historical past
Wieden+Kennedy creatives Jennie Ellsworth and Nell Stevens dug deep into McDonald’s archives to find McDonaldland, unearthing particulars like a hamburger refrain and sundae mountain.
That wealthy lore, with its “components of wackiness and imperfection,” will attraction to Gen Z’s urge for food for fantasy and absurdity, Stevens mentioned. Each a part of the marketing campaign, from the milkshake taste to the video games, is supposed to rekindle childhood pleasure and undertaking enjoyable.
“[McDonaldland] has this bizarre whimsy that feels prefer it’s from the thoughts of somebody on a wild journey. We wished to include that, so it will really feel human and resonate with individuals,” Stevens mentioned.
McDonaldland additionally makes use of handmade craftsmanship that stands out in a flood of digital and AI-generated content material, Ellsworth mentioned. Of their analysis, the creatives recalled discovering social posts from individuals expressing a need to return to a less complicated, nostalgic time when promoting was playful and “fantastically made,” Stevens mentioned.
“It’s a world created with props and puppeteers—an entire artist’s imaginative and prescient carried out simply because it was enjoyable,” Ellsworth mentioned. “We wished individuals to really feel it was tactile and handmade.”
McDonald’s North Star
As Gen Z discovers McDonaldland and older followers return to it, the model desires individuals “to really feel all of the belongings you do whenever you go on a visit—pleasure, enjoyable, a way of ‘how can I preserve coming again?’” mentioned Healan.
With the marketing campaign, McDonald’s continues to lean into its “fan fact” technique, which Healan known as “our North Star, guiding the whole lot we do.”
“It’s concerning the recollections, moments, rituals, and behaviors of our followers,” Healan mentioned. “[For this campaign] the fan fact was, there’s magic in McDonaldland. Folks had been asking us to carry it again.”
The fan truths technique has led to different common McDonald’s campaigns like “Well-known Orders,” which highlighted that even celebrities like Kim Kardashian have a go-to McDonald’s order.
It additionally allowed McDonald’s to enter subcultures the place it already has a presence, Healan mentioned. Its 2024 anime marketing campaign introduced the style’s fictional chain “WcDonald’s” to life. Earlier this yr, its collaboration with Minecraft—the chain’s largest marketing campaign ever—appealed to players forward of the blockbuster “Minecraft Film.”
In McDonald’s latest earnings name, Kempczinski cited the Minecraft collab for instance of “standout advertising and marketing” that’s boosting the enterprise.
After the January appointment of Alyssa Buetikofer as chief advertising and marketing officer (CMO), changing Tariq Hassan, McDonald’s continues to be going through challenges similar to restoring its popularity as a worth vacation spot for cost-strapped prospects.
However “the time feels proper” to carry again McDonaldland, Healan mentioned: “It’s about studying one thing new, really tapping into Gen Z tradition, and alluring them into an expertise and group. And hopefully, constructing a more in-depth connection to the model.”
