“Eat big potatoes during the Great Heat”, what else does McDonald’s do besides its solar term marketing?

With the arrival of the last solar term of summer, Great Heat, McDonald's China has once again attracted the attention of consumers with its unique solar term marketing strategy. This article will explore in depth the highlights and strategies of McDonald's in the Great Heat solar term marketing, and analyze how it combines traditional culture with modern trends to create a brand campaign that is deeply rooted in people's hearts.

Yesterday, on the last solar term of summer - Great Heat, McDonald's China officially announced the launch of the 10th "Big Potato Day".

During this solar term, McDonald's not only launched a 50% discount on potato products, but also teamed up with artist Yushan Fankuan to specially create two Chinese retro cooling peripherals - a retro multi-purpose mat and a retro waist fan.

McDonald's China has been holding "Big Potato Day" celebrations since 2015. This year, McDonald's Big Potato Day deepened the exploration of local culture, starting from the connotation of the Great Heat solar term, tracing the origin of Chinese summer heat customs, and specially created the theme of "A Cooling Recipe for Summer Heat" to pay tribute to Chinese traditional culture.

Specifically, there are three highlights of McDonald’s summer marketing:

1. Catch the new Chinese trend

On the Big Potato Day in 2018, McDonald's focused on urban culture. Based on the summer cool peripherals of French fry umbrellas, shoulder bags and slippers, it shot posters in combination with the heat-relief characteristics of different cities. In 2019, the main visual of "Human Heat Relief Observation" was used to present a cyberpunk style as a whole. In 2020, it focused on the pet economy and launched the limited peripheral "Meow Meow Potato Clip" blind box. In 2021, it followed the camping trend and launched T-shirts, hats, picnic mats, folding chairs and other trendy peripherals...

This year, the theme is centered around the explosively popular new Chinese style. According to platform data, the number of notes related to "new Chinese style" on Xiaohongshu increased by more than 390% throughout the year, and the total amount of interactions increased by more than 188%. New Chinese style dining, new Chinese style tourism, and new Chinese style decoration have also once again come up with new ideas under the name of new Chinese style.

2. Discovering super single products

French fries, as McDonald's super single product, have evolved from a single product to an IP. What is IPization? It means that the appearance, color, and taste of a single product can be used as a symbol for dissemination. When a single product is deeply rooted in people's hearts, you can play with some abstract concepts, such as AI art creation bronze French fries, blind path + McDonald's packaging = McDonald's French fries. McDonald's has many marketing activities to tap into the single product effect, such as McNuggets Chicken Man, French Fries McNuggets Walkie Talkie, etc. The IPization of single products can effectively maintain the vitality of the product.

3. Long-term IP management

The advantage of long-term IP is that it cultivates consumer habits. For example, when Thursday comes, everyone naturally thinks of Crazy Thursday. Periodic repetition is a strong link with consumers. McDonald's occupies the mindset of eating big potatoes during the Great Heat, making many young people look forward to what kind of peripherals McDonald's will launch during the Great Heat solar term.

As a 10-year long-term IP, "Big Potato Day" is still able to come up with new ideas today. On the one hand, it relies on the stability of the brand, and on the other hand, it relies on the ability to control the hot trends. Like the example above, the theme changes every year, and if you look closely, you can see the shadow of the most fashionable culture of the year.

Entering the Chinese mainland market in 1990 and entering the "Golden Arches" era in 2017, McDonald's development in China has been accelerating.

According to the data recently released by McDonald's, the number of restaurants currently exceeds 6,000, more than double that of 2017, and the number of employees exceeds 200,000. McDonald's China has become McDonald's second largest market in the world and also the fastest growing market.