The Campaign

In the world of anime and manga, only one place can call themselves the art form’s favorite restaurant: WcDonald’s. Yes, WcDonald’s. For decades, across hundreds of titles and thousands of scenes, McDonald’s has been bootlegged as ‘WcDonald’s’ to avoid official licensing.

And instead of sending cease and desists, McDonald’s leaned into the joke and flipped their arches, too. Making anime’s favorite fictional restaurant a reality for anime fans across the world.

From the beginning, we recognized that we were entering a space and a concept that existed far before our campaign. As visitors to the anime space, borrowing the IP of WcDonald’s, we knew that showing up authentically and mirroring the behavior of our fans was paramount. We studied the ways in which anime fans engaged with the material and with each other, and seeded those key insights into each audience touchpoint. From custom GIFs for us to use in the comment sections to a totally new Community Management language that included Japanese phrases and kaomoji, we strived to speak the language of our fans, using this opportunity to celebrate their excitement.