2023 marks the 40th anniversary of one of our most iconic products – Chicken McNuggets. Recognizing that McNuggets already have a place in pop culture as a symbol of sharing and enjoyment, we celebrated its 40th anniversary to amplify and consolidated its pop culture icon status – engaging with a new generation of fans with the goal of getting them to share McNuggets for 40 more years.

‘The McNuggets Art World’ is our bid to enshrine the McNuggets’ place in pop culture by curating a museum exhibition – a hype celebration of the past and the future. Working with a range of renowned multinational artists, we created a McNuggets-inspired immersive art exhibition experience that successfully got approval to place within an art museum – The McNuggets’ Art World. But beyond just celebrating the past, we also wanted to show its iconicity and relevancy to the present day and even the future. So, we even extended the McNuggets Art World from a physical experience all the way to the Metaverse!

Our Insight: Chicken McNuggets are so iconic they deserve a place in a museum.

Our mission was to celebrate Chicken McNuggets’ iconic 40-year history by placing it inside a museum, bringing the iconic product beyond our stores to places where our target audience’s interest lies. But not just in any museum. We aimed for cream of the crop, placing Chicken McNuggets inside Hong Kong’s most vibrant arts and culture quarter and home of the Hong Kong’s most prestigious museums – the West Kowloon Cultural District. To achieve this, we decided to use the inspirational power of Chicken McNuggets to create an immersive art exhibition experience that extended from a physical space to the metaverse, celebrating its iconic past and also inspiring younger generations to love and share Chicken McNuggets for many more years to come.

Partnering with Kevin Poon, a renowned Hong Kong-based pop art curator, we collaborated with a diverse range of multi-national artists such as VANDYTHEPINK, Jon Burgerman, UFO907, FrankNitty3000, and Gyuhan to create a series of Chicken McNuggets-inspired artworks – from paintings to interactive experiences.

We then created the world’s first Chicken McNuggets-inspired pop-art exhibition at the Arts Pavilion located at Hong Kong’s vibrant arts and culture quarter – the West Kowloon Cultural District. The Arts Pavilion at the district transformed into a Chicken McNuggets-inspired immersive journey, a fusion of arts, technology, and culture.

We then partnered with THE SANDBOX to create a virtual exhibition on the Metaverse. It was a gamified playground where players can play a plethora of gamified challenges. Players will have a chance to win a range of prizes, with an awesome grand prize – a Golden Pass to get free Chicken McNuggets for an entire year!

Visitors to the ‘McNuggets Art World’ far surpassed our target, garnering more that double the average visitation for exhibitions at the venue. The exhibition’s metaverse extension at The SANDBOX garnered over 737,000 game plays, which was a record high for branded game experiences hosted by The SANDBOX across all of 2023. In total, the campaign generated over USD$2.4M in earned media coverage.

In terms of sales, the campaign generated record-breaking McNuggets sales out of any campaign we ran in the past, which was 21% above our sales record during pre-COVID periods in 2019. The campaign also created all-time historical highs for our Gen Z Brand Buzz score and Positive Brand Impression score, as well as boosted our “Is a Brand for Someone Like Me Score”.