As one of the most iconic brands in the world, McDonald’s has embodied happiness for over 50 years. While its business is built on consistency, the global identity had become fragmented and inconsistent. In 2018, McDonald’s redesigned its visual identity from the ground up, with the intent of making every consumer touchpoint an opportunity to express the brand promise: making delicious, feel-good moments easy for everyone. We were charged with helping launch this new design to a global audience and transforming it into a force for feel-good moments.

As one of the most iconic brands in the world, McDonald’s has embodied happiness for over 50 years. While its business is built on consistency, the global identity had become fragmented and inconsistent. In 2018, McDonald’s redesigned its visual identity from the ground up, with the intent of making every consumer touchpoint an opportunity to express the brand promise: making delicious, feel-good moments easy for everyone. We were charged with launching this new design to a global audience.

To launch McDonald’s rebrand, we chose one of the biggest stages in the world: Times Square. 70+ animations were crafted for the 9,300-square-foot digital billboard atop McDonald’s new flagship restaurant.

From capturing the spirit of New York to celebrating the holidays, every single animation was designed with the New York tourist in mind. Each one was purposefully topical, contextually relevant and culturally fueled, to create millions of feel-good moments.

Times Square is known as the “Crossroads of the World” for a reason. More than 400,000 people visit every day, with many coming from all across the globe. McDonald's seized this opportunity to deliver simple, feel-good moments and express the lighthearted playfulness of the brand. In stark contrast to the ad-filled landscape of Times Square, the intent was not to sell—but rather re-inspire and reignite consumer love and devotion. The animations were designed with the global audience in mind, using key elements of the newly designed visual identity to create playful worlds that were universally understood.

McDonald’s new design is rooted in simplicity, but in order to bring it to life on the big screen and create millions of feel-good moments for all of Times Square, we seized the moment and transformed the new visual illustrations into animation.

At the core of each animation was a refined color palette, emphasizing gold with hints of red, expressive of McDonald’s golden, lighthearted and welcoming brand personality. The brand’s most recognizable assets–the Golden Arches–and iconic menu items were also featured in every animation in dynamic and unexpected ways, turning the design into playful storylines and worlds that could be universally understood by Times Square’s global audience.

Creative development began in November 2018, with content needed live on the board by mid-December to ensure McDonald’s had presence in Times Square during the busy holiday season and on one of New York’s biggest nights of the year, New Year’s Eve.

McDonald's successfully launched its visual identity on the world's stage, serving feel-good moments to the 400,000+ people who came through Times Square each day. With an estimated 27 million impressions to date and nearly 70 million impressions estimated by the end of 2019, McDonald’s sparked consumer love and stood out among the cluttered advertising landscape in Times Square, expressing the brand promise and the lighthearted playfulness of the brand.