McDonald’s taps QR codes as it preps WcDonald’s campaign celebrating the art of manga and anime
McDonald’s is gearing up to launch an immersive campaign that celebrates manga and anime.
This will go live on 26th February and will see the fast food giant change its names to WcDonald’s.
In a LinkedIn post, Guillaume Huin, Sr. Marketing Director at McDonald’s, said: “On 2.26, McDonald's becomes WcDonald's, as an homage to the name used for decades in mangas and anime to refer to McD.”
“New logo, Japanese name, flipped arches, new exclusive packaging, WcNuggets and a new WcDonald's sauce with quite a spicy kick - we are officially WcDonald's now.”
He added: “To honour the art of manga and anime, we have partnered with the legendary Japanese animation Studio Pierrot (Bleach, Naruto) and Acky Bright, a brilliant Japanese manga artist, to release four mini episodes and short mangas, once a week.”
The mangas are unlocked via a QR code on packaging or in select manga stores across the US.
Each episode and manga will cover a different genre of the anime world, going from shoji (romance) to shonen (action), fantasy or mecha battles. And each will have their own characters.
A collection of 15+ characters has been created and will be revealed shortly.
Huin said: “This campaign is another example of the brand's commitment to "share the pen" with fans and celebrate the cultures we've been a part of organically. Seeing the anime world take over our 13,500 stores is something I cannot wait for.”
“This immersive campaign was led by three talented marketers from the Brand and Content team: bravo Anna Engel, Nathaniel Gaynor, Yaritza Vallejo and special kudos to the culinary and menu team who developed the delicious WcDonald's Sauce and Wieden + Kennedy for the concept.”
Google Cloud
McDonald’s and Google recently announced plans for a new multi-year, global partnership.
The former says that it plans to leverage a wide range of Google Cloud's hardware, data, and AI technologies to “implement innovation faster and create even better experiences for its customers, restaurant teams, and employees”.
"We see tremendous opportunity for growth in our digital business and our partnership with Google Cloud allows us to capitalise on this by leveraging our size and scale to build capabilities and implement solutions at unmatched speeds," says Brian Rice, McDonald's Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer.
"Connecting our restaurants worldwide to millions of datapoints across our digital ecosystem means tools get sharper, models get smarter, restaurants become easier to operate, and most importantly, the overall experience for our customers and crew gets even better."
Google Distributed Cloud, a combined hardware and software offering, is planned to be deployed to thousands of McDonald's restaurants so they can leverage both cloud-based software applications and their own software and AI solutions locally on-site, as needed.
With Google Cloud edge computing capabilities, McDonald's will be able to draw new insights into how equipment is performing, enact solutions that reduce business disruptions, and diminish complexity for crew so restaurant teams can focus on customers.
McDonald's will be the largest global foodservice retailer to use Google Distributed Cloud's new capabilities, with plans for thousands of restaurants to begin receiving their hardware and software upgrades next year.
"Through this wide ranging partnership, Google Cloud will help McDonald's seize on new opportunities to transform its business and customer experiences, empowering restaurants worldwide with the latest technologies for near-term impact," says Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud's CEO.
"Pairing the iconic brand, size and scale of McDonald's with Google Cloud's deep history in AI and technology innovation will redefine how this industry works and what people expect when they dine out."
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