Every day our team goes to work identifying proactive opportunities for McDonald’s to interact with internet culture in a natural, “fan-to-fan” way. That means there was no specific brief for this project. It was an entirely proactive real-time activation.

When comedy TikTok star Emily Zugay began offering her graphic design "talents” to some world famous brands, we saw an opportunity to surprise people by adopting her lo-fi rebrand across all McDonald’s social platforms.

We moved fast to capitalize on the cultural moment, casually dropping a comment on Emily’s video asking her for an update to our famous Golden Arches. She delivered a masterpiece, and to the surprise of millions, “McDonald’s” became “mcdOalds” all across the internet, for one glorious day.

McDonald’s is a massive, global brand that’s been around for decades. Our job is to make sure that it’s also an active, additive member of the social internet, by speaking “fan-to-fan” and participating in online culture in real-time whenever possible. No one needs another faceless corporation pushing stuffy advertisements into their feed. We remind fans daily why they love the brand, by doing what they do, with them – and never taking ourselves too seriously.

We noticed Emily’s hilarious brand redesign videos and wanted to get involved, so we started with the simple TikTok comment “plz do me next graphic design is my passion.” When her next video featured the now-classic “mcdOalds” design, we moved fast to make the moment as big and fun as possible.

In a matter of hours, we'd convinced the CEO of McDonald's(!) to fully adopt Emily's "mcdOald's" design, and surprised millions with a tongue-in-cheek reskinning of our TikTok, Twitter and Instagram profiles with the name “mcdOalds” and Emily’s O logo. Accompanying real-time content helped provide context for those who missed it, and CM replies made cOnstant use of the capital O for extra fun. We even displayed her artwork IRL on the sign at her local McDonald's, and made “mcdOalds” T-shirts for the crew to wear. Oh, and we didn’t forget to pay Emily fairly for her amazing work either.

- 30 Million total impressions

- 1.2 Million Engagements

- Most Viewed McDonald’s TikTok of 2021