McDonald's produces more advertising than almost any brand on earth, which makes its best work all the more remarkable for standing out. The 'I'm Lovin' It' jingle became one of the most recognised sonic logos in history. The 'Sliding Billboard' and 'Follow the Arches' campaigns showed a brand confident enough to reduce itself to a shape. And work from markets including the UK, France, and South Africa has consistently pushed what a fast food brand can say about identity, community, and belonging.
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Can I get uhhhhh
- McDonald's · 2022
The creative taps into the universal, highly relatable human truth of pulling up to a fast-food drive-thru speaker and pausing indecisively with 'Can I get uhhhhh...' Tapping into this ubiquitous cultural moment, the brand uses environmental design to turn a mundane parking lot into a humorous, self
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Can I Get Uhhhhhhhhhhhh
- McDonald's · Wieden+Kennedy · 2022
Wieden+Kennedy built this Super Bowl campaign on a fan truth everyone recognises: the split second at the counter or the drive-thru speaker when May I take your order lands and the mind goes completely blank. The result is the involuntary Can I get uhhhhhhhh, and the film runs that same freeze throu
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Never Done
- McDonald's UK · Leo Burnett UK
Never Done treats abundance and freshness as a continuous process rather than a finished plate. The work follows ingredients through their stages, potatoes being sorted, beef being prepared, so the promise is about what happens before the counter and the claim of always getting more than expected is
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Your place or ours?
- McDonald's · Saatchi&Saatchi
In Qatar, McDonald's was losing children's birthdays to elaborate themed parties staged at home. Rather than competing on personalisation, the campaign reopens the question of what actually makes a good children's party and puts the restaurant back into a decision parents had stopped making consciou
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Job That Suits Me
- McDonald's
McDonald's "Job That Suits Me". A recruitment spot framing flexible jobs that fit around your life.
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You Do Know Where
- McDonald's · 2017
McDonald's "You Do Know Where". A spot playing on the instinct of always knowing where to go for the food you crave.
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50 for 50
- McDonald's · 2021
McDonald's "50 for 50". An anniversary spot marking 50 years of the brand.
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The Smittie
- McDonald's · 2016
McDonald's "The Smittie". A kid playing superhero at a home party captures playful childhood imagination around a McDonald's moment.
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Drwal
- McDonald's · DDB Warszawa · 2025
McDonald's "Drwal". A wintry city scene sets up the seasonal Drwal (lumberjack) burger.
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Big Mac SOS
- McDonald's · 2018
Naturalistic restaurant interior with soft daylight. A young man in a grey sweatshirt bites into a burger, eyes closed, shot in tight close-up with shallow focus that blurs the McDonald's menu boards and seated diners behind him. Muted greys and browns are lifted by warm red and yellow accents from
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Awaken
- McDonald's · DDB Buenos Aires · 2019
McCafé's Awaken speaks to the people who have to be alert when the world is asleep, night-shift workers, students pulling late hours, anyone owed overtime. The insight: coffee's real job in those moments is to turn night into day, so the campaign positions a good McCafé as the thing that keeps you a
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Now You Can Also Cycle-Thru
- McDonald's · TBWA · 2026
For World Sustainable Transport Day, TBWA announced that McDonald's drive-thru would serve cyclists too. The insight: the drive-thru is defined by the car, so simply opening it to bikes is a policy change that speaks for itself, and plain print visuals of cyclists at the window make the point matter
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Gourmet Menu | The New Normal
- McDonald's India · 2021
McDonald's India sought to launch its premium Gourmet Burger Collection during the pandemic, aiming to increase average order value when dine-in traffic was restricted. Recognizing that consumers stuck in lockdown craved indulgent, restaurant-quality experiences to break the monotony of virtual meet
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Welcome to McClassroom
- McDonald's · Wieden+Kennedy · 2020
For National Teacher's Month in the Philippines, McDonald's opened its empty party rooms - the spaces built for children's birthdays, sitting unused - to teachers who needed somewhere with reliable WiFi to run their classes from. The insight is that the brand was already holding exactly what teacher
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Unbranded Menu
- McDonald's · Leo Burnett London · 2023
The campaign was built on the insight that McDonald's iconic food items frequently appear as generic, 'unbranded' assets in video games. To connect with the hard-to-reach gaming community authentically, the brand inverted the traditional media spend by 'claiming' these unofficial appearances. The cr
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McDonald's?
- McDonald's · Cossette · 2013
To deepen McDonald's cultural relevance in Canada, the brand moved away from functional product messaging to celebrate its place in daily routines. The strategy taps into the insight that McDonald's is so deeply embedded in everyday life that the brand name itself serves as a conversational shorthan
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Christmas 2019 | #ReindeerReady | TV
- McDonald's UK · leo burnett london · 2019
To earn a credible role in the family magic of Christmas, this campaign tapped into the insight that the ritual of preparing for Santa's visit is a key part of the excitement. The creative idea, '#ReindeerReady', positioned McDonald's as a facilitator of this tradition. The mechanism was a charming
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For every family out there | Let's Family at McD
- McDonald's India · DDB Mudra · 2023
To modernize its legacy positioning as India's ultimate family restaurant for younger generations, McDonald's needed to redefine what family means in a changing cultural landscape. The campaign taps into the insight that family is no longer strictly defined by traditional bloodlines, but by chosen f
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Every Order Get Its Own Trip
- McDonald's · FP7/DXB · 2018
McDonald's needed to correct a lingering belief that its delivery still covered as little ground as it did at launch. The insight: customers don't care about network maps, they care that their food arrives piping hot and fresh, so a dense delivery network is dramatised as every order getting its own
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Loving Bangkok Nights
- McDonald's · TBWA · 2019
TBWA Bangkok's campaign folds McDonald's into the texture of the city's nightlife. The insight: Bangkok is most itself after dark, alive with Thonglor party-goers, roadside second-hand stalls and street-corner fortunetellers, and among all of it sits the 24-hour McDonald's, so the brand claims a nat
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Share the Love #NationalFrenchFryDay
- McDonald's · We Are Unlimited · 2019
For National French Fry Day, McDonald's built a campaign around a fact its own data already proved: their fries are one of the most shared foods in the world. The insight: don't invent a new occasion, amplify the sharing behaviour customers already do naturally, so two hands forming the golden arche
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McDonald's Lovin' It
- McDonald's · TBWA Thailand · 2020
TBWA Thailand takes the I'm lovin' it tagline at its word. The insight: real desire looks the same whether it's for a person or a burger, so models are caught in the charged instant before a kiss, except they're about to devour a McDonald's burger, making lovin' it a literal, romantic craving.
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NO SMILES
- McDonald's Japan · TBWA\HAKUHODO · 2014
McDonald's Japan had promised customers a free smile for fifty years - and in a Gen Z hiring crisis, that promise had become the reason young people would not take the job. So the brand publicly retired it, released a song called I Won't Give You a Smile with an artist Gen Z actually listen to, and
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Breakfast that's freshly prepared. Even if you're not
- Mcdonald's · leo burnett · 2012
McDonald's sought to drive morning foot traffic and shift perceptions of its breakfast quality by emphasizing that its menu items are freshly made. The campaign taps into the relatable struggle of the morning rush, where groggy, half-awake commuters head to work feeling disheveled and completely unp
McDonald's advertising is worth studying for what it reveals about working at scale. The brand needs to be simultaneously global and local, consistent and fresh, reassuring and surprising. The campaigns that pull that off are the ones that find something true about why people actually go to McDonald's - not the food, but the feeling.