McDonald’s is planning to expand by 25%, opening 50,000 new restaurants around the world by 2027. Canada is part of those plans, so our challenge was to figure out how to highlight all these openings.

The inauguration of a new restaurant is more than just an expansion—it’s a cause for celebration. McDonald’s wanted to welcome customers with an invitation that conveys the festive spirit and friendly experience the brand is known for.

The idea was to celebrate every restaurant opening by stimulating people’s imagination and evoking McDonald’s iconic menu items in a festive way. And nothing says “celebration” like confetti.

More and more people are opting for delivery or takeout, so our job was to invite Canadian families to get reacquainted with the joy of dining in restaurant.

In the current digital era, many people would’ve turned to AI to produce these visuals. However, we purposefully decided to execute the idea in real life to maintain the festive effect created by the movement of the confetti.

Producing this campaign was a major technical challenge requiring 163 hours of experimentation, 54 hours of shooting, and support from 23 dedicated individuals.

We created explosions of confetti that feature iconic McDonald’s menu items and meet the technical challenge of creating a sense of movement in static images.

With the help of a trampoline, a high-speed camera that shoots 30 FPS, and hundreds of tests involving countless pieces of brightly coloured confetti, we developed a series of visuals that can be adapted to any celebration, in any language.

The toolkit was released just recently, less than two months ago. The enthusiastic and warm reception from both franchisees and the media are a sign that we can expect very positive results in the coming months and years.

Here’s what we know so far:

Added to the official McDonald’s Grand Opening playbook, accessible to over 1,400 McDonald’s franchisees across the country

Identified as a campaign that can be expanded globally; picked up by global trade publications

Great enthusiasm and reception from franchisees; all new grand opening plans are now using this toolkit (over 18 in the past 2 months)

Expansion of the merchandising toolkit to add 40% more formats

30% more paid media placements than in the past to support grand opening plans.