Last Updated on September 4, 2024
McDonald’s Corporation was started on April 15, 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois. Originally the business began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald. Later on businessman Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent in 1955 and thus McDonald’s Corporation started their successful journey.
Today McDonald’s operates over 31,000 restaurants worldwide, employing more than 1.5 million people. Being the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, their brand name is well know around the world.
You could potentially propose an argument that they are one of the top 10 most known brands in the world. They serve as a great role model to any potential business, no matter the niche.
According to the 2010 Annual Report, McDonald’s is serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries, with over 31,000 restaurants worldwide. Those are some large/scary numbers. Their powerful momentum has stunned the world, while continuing to keep their prices low.
Now that we have some background regarding their prominent status, let’s talk more about their advertising practices. Everybody understands that in order to sell your product, your fist priority is to let the potential customer know it exists.
A quick glance at McDonald’s Corp color choice, and the “average joe” will think nothing of it. Interestingly enough, red and yellow are powerful colors. The duo sparks the thought of hunger inside our brain. A great epiphany of this, are the bottle/food colors of ketchup and mustard.
Hopefully this made you aware of their restaurants colors, advertising, packaging, product placement, and all of their other business practices. Their intelligent convention does not end there.
They hire some of the best people in business, to take care of their print, audio, and video advertising campaigns. Sometime their ads are funny, sometimes they’re creative, and sometime they promote a good cause. The “I’m lovin it!” slogan jingles over and over until it’s finally tattooed in our brain.
In this article we want to showcase some of the best McDonald’s advertising. Below we hand-picked some great examples based on quality/creativity. We hope the following adverts will open your eyes and appreciate the “Giant’s” practices. There is a general understand that advertising can be evil.
Companies usually stretch the truth and lead us to believing their products are better than reality. This frustrates myself and subtracts my respect for that company’s brand.
For this reason, we tried to keep this collection misleading-free. The following images were all collected from Adsoftheworld.com, a great place for creatives.
Billboards 200m-197m
- Advertising Agency: DDB Denmark
- Creative Director: Jesper Schmidt
- Published: June 2009
Baby Ronald
- Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, New Delhi, India
- Art Director/Illustrator: Sumonto Ghosh
- Published: N/A
The Real Milkshake
- Advertising Agency: DDB Helsinki, Finland
- Creative Director: Jukka Mannio
- Published: April 2009
Torino 2006 Winter Olympics Sponsorship: Ski-Jump
- Advertising Agency: DDB, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Creative Director: Joris Kuijpers, Dylan de Backer
- Published: 2006
Carrots
- Advertising Agency: DDB, Stockholm, Sweden
- Creative Team: Andreas Dahlqvist, Lars Friberg, Simon Higby, Ted Harry Mellström, Mattias Manitski
- Published: N/A
A sandwich for experts.
- Advertising Agency: DDB, Budapest, Hungary
- Creative Director: Péter Tordai
- Published: 2010
Nice Try Mom
- Advertising Agency: GBK Heye, Munich, Germany
- Creative Director: Alexander Bartel, Martin Kiessling
- Published: 2007
Bear
- Advertising Agency: Arnold, Boston, USA
- Creative Director: Chris Edwards
- Published: April 2009
Bite
- Advertising Agency: DDB, Auckland, New Zealand
- Creative Director: Toby Talbot
- Published: April 2008
Coffee Pole
- Advertising Agency: Cossette West, Canada
- Creative Director: Bryan Collins, Rob Sweetman
- Published: 2009
The Veggieburger
- Advertising Agency: Neue Digitale/Razorfish, Berlin, Germany
- Creative Director: René Lamberti
- Published: 2010
Coffee Bean
- Advertising Agency: N/A
- Creative Director: N/A
- Published: 2007
Brace For Flavor
- Advertising Agency: Adams Outdoor Advertising, USA
- Art Director: Todd Turner
- Published: May 2011
Clock Billboard
- Advertising Agency: Bernstein-Rein, USA
- Art Director: : Paul Prato
- Published: 2011
Jumper
- Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, Milan, Italy
- Creative Director: Enrico Dorizza
- Published: 2005
Broad menu, Girl
- Advertising Agency: DDB, Sweden
- Creative Director: Andreas Dahlqvist
- Published: 2007
Burger Mysteries
- Advertising Agency: DDB, Budapest, Hungary
- Creative Director: Milos Ilic
- Published: 2007
Filet-O-Fish: Fish bowl
- Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
- Creative Director: Flavio Zanni, Mohammed Bahmishan
- Published: November 2011
Wi-Fries
- Advertising Agency: DDB Sydney, Australia
- Creative Director: Matt Eastwood
- Published: 2009
Large Coffee
- Advertising Agency: DDB, Helsinki, Finland
- Creative Director: Vesa Tujunen
- Published: 2011
Rock ‘n’ Fries
- Advertising Agency: Taterka Comunicações, São Paulo, Brazil
- Creative Director: Rodrigo Vezzá
- Published: July 2008
Wi-Fi
- Advertising Agency: DDB Denmark
- Creative Director: Patrik Danielsson
- Published: October 2007
Breakfast Newspaper
- Advertising Agency: DDB, Stockholm, Sweden
- Creative Director: Andreas Dahlqvist
- Published: 2007
Wake up with a premium roast coffee
- Advertising Agency: AlmaDDB Miami, USA
- Creative Director: Enrique Faillace
- Published: 2008
Freshness Box Salad
- Advertising Agency: Heye Group, Unterhaching, Germany
- Creative Director: Ralph Taubenberger
- Published: 2008
Creative Commercial Examples
As we all know Mcdonalds has released hundreds (if not thousands) of commercials. They range from funny, creepy, and last but not least emotional. Many are quite cheesy, and almost painful to watch. Lucky for you, we didn’t include them in this minimal collection.
In general, humorous commercials are much more interesting to watch. Adding more fuel to that fire, being in the internet age “funny” easily becomes viral.
We collected ten great commercials that have been publicly aired by McDonald’s Corporation. Without further interruption, we hope you enjoy them. Also feel free to link to other great commercials in the comment section.
1. Earths Treasure
2. Apple Tree
3. Suzi Van Zoom
4. Lester
5. Filet-o-Fish
6. No Fry Left Behind
7. Monopoly Commercial featuring LeBron James
