Retail technology innovation of the week: Fast food giant McDonald’s is turning Japanese
Retail Technology Innovation of the Week is a new series brought to you by RTIH and sponsored by 3D Cloud by Marxent, highlighting stand out deployments, launches, and initiatives by retailers and tech suppliers.
Every week, we will showcase forward thinking tech plays that have impressed our Editor and the Retail Technology Innovations Report judging panel, in the run up to the publication of the 2024 report in March.
So far, we’ve showcased work being done by Ocado Retail, Decathlon, Lacoste, Downtown Spirits, TalkShopLive, Huck’s, Rovertown, Wing, Nobody’s Child, IKI, Pixevia, Walmart, A.L.C., Archive, Therabody, Outform, Kingfisher, PMC, Żabka Polska, Boots UK, Ocula Technologies, Grace O'Malley Irish Whiskey, Metacask, Ikea, Carrefour Belgium, HMV, Worldpay from FIS, and FreedomPay.
And this week we’re focusing on McDonald’s, which 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.”
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