McDonalds is hungry for NFT attention - Episode 337 - by cryptohunt.it

McDonalds is hungry for NFT attention

It’s Friday, Jan 13th - Welcome to the Cryptohunt Jam, where we spend a minute a day explaining the intersection of exciting new technologies and your world. As always: In plain English.

Whether you love McDonalds or would never go to one of their restaurants, the power of the brand is undeniable.

And like many, at the hype of the crypto boom, McDonalds jumped onto the NFT bandwagon and released their own collection of 10 digital collectibles. So, what were they thinking... and how has that worked out?

You know by now that we are obsessed with the way brands are using Web3 to engage with their audiences - some are very smart and innovative, like Nike and Netflix for example, and others are simply trying to capitalize on a trend.

But back to McDonalds. If you are a fan, (like me) you will immediately know what the McRib is - the famous sandwich that had rib meat on it instead of a traditional burger patty. The main complain about it: McDonalds didn't make it any longer. And so, when McDonalds announced the limited return of the McRib in late 2021, fans went completely wild.

And unfortunately, we think, so did McDonald's marketing team. Anything that grabbed attention was on their whiteboard. Ultimately, they decided to do what seemingly everyone back then was doing: create an NFT. In this case, 10 MacRib NFTs actually, digital collectibles with the image of a sandwich rotating on your screen. Not exactly creative if you ask us. And McDonalds plan? Probably the most overused trick in the marketing-for-social-media-beginners handbook: Ask people to tweet about it in order to enter the raffle to win one of these NFTs.

So how did the McDonalds campaign do? Hard to say if it got more people to try out the real McRib, but the Tweet was seen by over 2m people. But with 4.7m followers on McDonalds’ Twitter account, that may not actually be that great of a result.

And as far as those NFTs go? They seem to have a hard time changing hands as collectibles. No wonder, because owning them doesn't give you any benefits.

Well, McDonalds, maybe next time you do something interesting, like taking a page out of Nike's playbook. How about a lifetime of free real McRibs for each lucky NFT holder? Because just hijacking a trend for attention isn't as interesting as creating an experience that connects fans with your brand in a meaningful way.

And that was McDonalds - or how to not use NFTs to promote a product. And next week we’ll pick this right up and talk about other interesting Web3 experiments from major brands. Stay tuned and enjoy the weekend! I am hungry now and know what I will have for lunch today.

This podcast is produced by Cryptohunt.it, the easiest place to learn all about Web3. Copywriting is done by Arndt Voges, Social Media is done by Brett Holleman, design is done by Carmen Rincon, and my name is Christian Byza, Co-Founder of Cryptohunt and I am your host of this daily show.