McDonald's Corporation: We Love To See You Smile campaign

This paper describes how the $500 million (approx £250 million in 2008) ‘Smile’ campaign of 2000 failed to redress the sales slump and promote the store revamps.

McDonald's Corporation: We Love To See You Smile campaign

Rayna Bailey

OVERVIEW

McDonald's Corporation, with more than 26,000 restaurants serving 43 million customers every day in 2000, was the world's number one fast-food burger chain and also the best known. But despite its brand recognition and international reach, the nearly 50-year-old chain was struggling through an inexplicable sales slump that had industry experts scratching their heads and wondering what the problem was. In an effort to revive its image and boost sales, McDonald's upgraded its restaurants. The overhaul included upgrading the interiors, repainting the exteriors, introducing new menu items and...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands