How bad can a McDonald's lover be?

"A person who likes McDonald's can't be that bad, Mcgate!", "A person who likes puppies can't have bad intentions, doggate will last forever!" If you see such comments online, don't be surprised, this is the way young people nowadays express their preferences and find people like them. The rise of "XXgate" can be traced back to McDonald's marketing, but its spread and popularity are not limited to this. The author of this article analyzes this and shares it with you.

"A person who thinks McDonald's is delicious can't be that bad. This is my view on good and evil!"

"May Mai Mai bless every child who is working hard outside, Mai Men~"

"I'm a Maimon believer. Can you secretly give me a French fry to try? No, it's okay. Maimon is immortal!"

"McMen" among young people is the abbreviation of "loyal disciples of McDonald's", a derivative of the Christian word "Amen", which is interpreted as "believing in McDonald's". A large number of "McMen" have emerged on various social media platforms. Through emoticons, jokes and short videos, they have made the McDonald's brand and a series of McDonald's signature products frequently appear in the public eye.

In terms of market size alone, McDonald's China is not as large as KFC China. Data shows that by the end of 2022, KFC China had 9,094 offline stores, while McDonald's had only 4,978 offline stores. However, the influx of these "McGate believers" seems to have quietly tilted the balance in the hearts of users.

"Originally, I treated KFC and McDonald's equally, and even slightly preferred KFC because their local porridge, rice, fried dough sticks, etc. were better. But this month, I was brainwashed by Maimen on Xiaohongshu and Douyin, so much so that when my mom asked me what I wanted to eat when I went out, I subconsciously called her Maimai." Freshman Li Xin said with emotion.

The brainwashing of various memes has made young people more fond of and expectant of McDonald's. But in fact, even in the Western fast food industry, McDonald's is not the first to use meme marketing. Before the "McGate" became popular, the more familiar Western fast food meme routine was KFC's "Crazy Thursday, V Me 50".

This type of marketing using memes is a microcosm of brand marketing strategies in the past two years. It is not just McDonald's and KFC that frequently use memes. The background music of "You love me, I love you, Mixue Bingcheng is sweet" is something that many people can't help but automatically play in their minds as soon as they see it.

1. The history of Maimen: from music to jokes, from folk memes to official consequences

Some people commented that the success of Maimen’s marketing was so great that “McDonald’s should pay Eason (Eason Chan) money.”

In 2006, Eason Chan attended the concert of the group "Soft and Hard Tianshi" as a guest. At that time, Eason Chan was the spokesperson for McDonald's. In order to promote the song, he changed the song "The Sunset Is Beautiful" to "McDonald's Is Beautiful" during the concert. "The Sunset Is Beautiful" itself is a song that expresses the sadness and helplessness of life, but the lyrics became particularly funny after the change:

McDonald's hamburgers, good good good

McDonald's French fries, strips

McDonald's milkshake, milkshake

McDonald's ice cream, GO GO GO GO

…

The funny feeling brought by the contrast of lyrics, coupled with the catchy tune of "The Sunset is So Beautiful" itself, won laughter from the crowd at the concert. In the era of short videos, it became popular again after a TikTok blogger "Go to Spa" changed the cover to a child's voice, and secondary works continued to appear on major video websites, pushing up the popularity of the song "McDonald's is So Beautiful".

At the same time, the "Maimen code" notes appeared on platforms such as Xiaohongshu: note the "Maimen" identity in the McDonald's order, ask if you can get a few crispy fries to try, and if you happen to meet a McDonald's employee who understands the joke, they may give you a few extra fries in the order. This sense of surprise of "we don't know each other but we have a tacit understanding because we are both Maimen" and the sense of humor of "everyone takes the fabricated Maimen seriously" made such notes quickly popular. A large number of users began to imitate such behavior to place orders and post, and it became a hot search on self-media platforms several times.

The "Worship McDonald's Labor Education" group, which appeared on Douban in 2017, finally reached its climax in the era of short videos in 2022. The "Worship McDonald's Labor Education" group declared: "Life without McDonald's is not worth living. McDonald's - the three most beautiful words in the world. If you eat at least one McDonald's meal a day, please join this group. If you are determined to join a McDonald's, please join this group." It also opened the starting point of Maimen Literature. Unlike "Crazy Thursday V Me 50", Maimen Literature is not limited to spreading among acquaintances or communities, but has begun to sweep across major platforms, deriving a series of content from emoticons to videos, and with strong spontaneity, mass communication is more lasting and deeper.

McDonald's, which was watching the fire from the other side, chose to join this Internet show at the end of 2022. When the McDonald's Gate gradually became popular, it took the initiative to seize this hot opportunity and started "living" on the Internet.

In November 2022, McDonald’s official Weibo responded to comments in the netizens’ comment section, changing its official style, and the copy gradually became closer to "McMen Literature".

In December 2022, McDonald's officially claimed "McMen" and began to repost the lyrics of "McDonald's is Infinitely Good" and called it "Whose Song of Life", reposted McMen emojis, posted on Weibo to collect McMen literary memes, and posted "McMen, my eternal home. McMen!" on the official blog, and launched the "Chicken Can't Lose Emoji Contest" on Weibo to increase the popularity of McMen.

In January 2023, McDonald’s released on Bilibili: [McMc Guide] McDonald’s: What’s the McWhat?

On February 3, 2023, the official blog released the "Maimen Card" series of Maimen posters. The official Maimen marketing has also entered a mature stage. Maimen has become an official live-action meme. McDonald's acknowledges the existence of Maimen and realizes a two-way run with Maimen.

In fact, McDonald's has had plenty of experience in "McGate" marketing. There have long been memes comparing McDonald's to religion on the Internet. This humorous and playful approach deconstructs the seriousness of religion to a certain extent. Therefore, calling McDonald's a religion is not new. Even when "McGate" marketing started, the official may have been paying attention and even fueling it. After all, as a competitor of KFC, it has suffered from "Crazy Thursday" for a long time.

2. Maimen Marketing: How important is the new vitality of young people to brands?

"The world is yours, and it is ours as well, but in the final analysis, it is yours. You young people are full of vigor and vitality, and are in your prime, like the sun at eight or nine o'clock in the morning. Hope rests on you."

If a brand wants to develop stably in the long term, it needs to maintain the reputation of new customers while maintaining existing customers. For a century-old brand like McDonald's, how to continuously maintain the reputation of new customers is the top priority. The new customers we are talking about are naturally young people.

Brand concepts cannot be passed down through blood like genes. In the field of brands, the younger generation often likes to go against the trend of their elders and avoid using brands that they think have traditional brand concepts and cannot express young attitudes. This is to highlight the uniqueness of the new generation and quickly form a circle with young people of the same generation, isolating them from the older generation. Even today, when domestic products are reviving, a large number of old domestic brands are ignored by young people because they are "not trendy enough". Young people are more inclined to choose some new domestic brands and express their consumption attitudes and values ​​by supporting new domestic brands.

Even for young categories such as Western fast food, if they cannot keep up with the trends of young people, the brand value will quickly decline. Therefore, how to inject young genes into the brand is one of the marketing starting points that all company brand departments will pay attention to.

Just like the annual summary of NetEase Cloud Music, which NetEase played before, Maimen Marketing is a classic marketing case that injects youthful vitality into the brand. When "playing with memes" becomes a popular rigid demand among young people, brands and young people play memes together, complete brand recommendation and entry at the right time and with the right memes, and effectively penetrate into the young group - McDonald's has successfully achieved resonance with young people.

Such marketing cases targeting young people have actually been running through McDonald’s brand career. For example, the well-known McDonald’s Sichuan dipping sauce case: When Disney’s “Mulan” movie was released in 1988, McDonald’s launched a “Sichuan dipping sauce” in collaboration with Disney to launch Mulan toys. However, after the movie ended, the Sichuan dipping sauce also disappeared quietly. Twenty years later, the protagonist in the popular late-night adult cartoon “Rick and Morty” shouted: “I want Mulan’s McNuggets dipping sauce! That dipping sauce! Sichuan dipping sauce!”

This instantly revived the childhood memories of McDonald's Sichuan sauce for many American kids who missed or never had Sichuan sauce 20 years ago. Young people in the United States called out to McDonald's on Facebook, demanding the reintroduction of Sichuan sauce. This became a typical case of McDonald's entering the young population.

A good brand stalk has a similar function to a brand slogan. It can give a new profile to the brand and enrich the three-dimensionality of the brand image. For example, "Crazy Thursday" is the main event, and McDonald's also tries to promote its classic and personalized products such as pork fillet and egg burger in "McGate". After these catchy slogans form group cognition, the brand can timely claim and promote them in time, which can achieve continuous self-propagation within the group, and the brand's profit will be more lasting. Even people outside the digital circle can shout out "Sony Dafa is good", and these five words can save Sony a lot of promotion costs that are unimaginable.

But how to make such memes maintain their long-term popularity and become a long-term brand asset like "Sony is great" may be a problem that McDonald's needs to continue to think about and invest in after successfully playing the meme. After all, this McMenamin is not the real McMenamin. Although it has already formed its own circle, the richness of the output content has declined and it has not yet reached the level where it can continue to develop advanced.

3. What is the advantage of Maimen Marketing: Capturing the excitement of young people

"A person who likes kittens can't be that bad. This is my view on good and evil. The cat gate will last forever!"

"A person who likes to slack off at work can't be that bad. They are too lazy to even put in the effort at work, let alone harm others. This is my view of good and evil. Touch the door!"

Zhou Zi, who has 10 years of experience in the Internet industry, said: "I was unknowingly recruited by these mysterious organizations and became their die-hard followers. I am a cat-door and a touch-door."

In fact, choosing a door to enter is not much different from the "labeling" method that we are familiar with among the post-80s and post-90s. Expressing preferences and seeking people with similar interests has always been a human instinct, and it is one of the most enthusiastic behaviors among young people.

The biggest difference from traditional labeling is probably that choosing the right door to enter seems a bit humorous and unreasonable, a bit crazy, which makes labeling childish and cute.

Human beings are creatures that repeat themselves constantly. Repackaging the old routines will create a new trend.

From the 80s, 90s and 00s, each generation of young people has its own growth path, which seems to be separated from the spirit of previous generations, and it seems difficult to understand each other. But in fact, no matter how contrasting, rebellious, or arrogant the young people are, they all have similar characteristics to the previous generation of young people. Whether wandering in labels or shuttling between "doors", they are not out of the hearts of young people who are eager to show, to be recognized, and to have a group of like-minded people.

Everyone goes through the process of childhood, adolescence, youth, middle age and finally old age. Everyone knows that being young is not a sin. However, because young people are prone to making mistakes, they are criticized a lot. Some of these criticisms are positive, while many are completely negative, and even become a kind of spiritual psychological pressure. When the specific social norms of the previous generation are implemented, those young people who violate the norms seem to become "outsiders". No one likes to be labeled randomly or negatively, and they don't want to be outside the "norms" - everyone desires that their expression be respected by society.

Each generation has a different historical background, and the values ​​and outlook on life of young people are changing. Naturally, there are some that are contrary to the ideas of the older generation and different from the norms of social conventions. Actively expressing and actively seeking recognition is a way to avoid silence. Young people with relatively weak voices naturally choose to start by gathering together, labeling, and "getting started".

The success of Maimen's marketing lies in, on the surface, combining McDonald's with religion and deconstructing humor into a unique discourse system and an independent cultural group, but in fact the core is to capture the exciting core of this group of young people - the repression and independence beneath the humor.

If a mature brand person focuses on the young group as a specific group from the beginning, it will be difficult to find resonance with them. It seems that only brand people of the same age can understand each other's perspective. But if you can understand and put yourself in the shoes of others from the perspective of your own past experiences, you will find that there are so many similarities between the two sides, and it will be easier to identify and expect in brand actions. In one wave of development after another, new things emerge generation after generation. It may be a very efficient marketing path to copy the previous methodology as the core of thought and then cater to the shell of new things.

Author: Ms. Rui Rui