McDonald’s is one of the biggest advertisers in the world, and its campaign history shows a brand learning, sometimes expensively, what customers actually want from it.
The McDonald’s Monopoly game, first run in the U.S. in 1987, shows the power of a simple promotion that brings people back again and again. It also shows the risk of handing control to others: for years, the top prizes were secretly stolen by a security director at the company running the game, and more than 50 people were convicted in 2001.
In 1996 McDonald’s tried to change who its customers were. The Arch Deluxe, a burger marketed specifically to adults with one of the most expensive campaigns in fast-food history, fought against everything people liked about McDonald’s: speed, low prices and familiarity. It was discontinued in 2000.
After the company’s first-ever loss in 2002, it tried the opposite approach. “I’m Lovin’ It”, created by a German agency and launched in 2003 as McDonald’s first global campaign, spoke in the customer’s own voice and paired it with a five-note jingle. More than two decades later, it is still running.
The contrast is instructive. McDonald’s campaigns work when they celebrate what customers already love about the brand, and fail when they ask customers to see it as something else.