THE CHALLENGE
Branded food content has hit a creative drought and Gen Z isn’t biting. Our team noticed branded food content has gone stale, feeling repetitive, overproduced, and easy to scroll past. For McDonald’s Virginia region, our mission is to stop the scroll. We set out to create an interactive social campaign that feels spontaneous, candid, and humorous.
INTRODUCING THE
Our Strategy
First Spot
Our Deliverables
To catch Gen Z’s attention, we will turn the McDonald’s Virginia feed into a two-week mystery. Grimace disappears right before his birthday, and the entire region becomes the search party. Our goal is to get Gen Z to stop scrolling and start sleuthing. We created a scavenger-hunt style reel series for Instagram, inviting Gen Z Virginians to track clues, suspects, and sightings as Grimace’s birthday countdown ticks closer to June 12.
Collectables and Prizes
Second Spot
To translate the campaign’s hype to sales, every meal comes with one of four collectible trading cards featuring characters from the case. Complete the set and you unlock an exclusive T-shirt and a meal discount to give the hunt a tangible payoff.
Final Spot
Between reels, the McDonald’s app will deliver “case updates,” pulling the mystery into the real world and giving followers another place to dive deeper. Missing Grimace posters would be placed throughout Virginia college campuses to reach our target audience directly. The case will extend to stores with limited time “Grimace Protection Program” cups and bags. Every order becomes part of the mystery, nudging customers to follow along online and join the search for Grimace.
