The archive · Brand & Identity · Marketing decision · 2023
McDonald's Grimace birthday shake becomes Gen Z's meme — and Q2 US sales grow 10.3%
A retro purple-shake meal for 1970s mascot Grimace gave Gen Z a meme prop: absurdist TikTok skits, three billion views, 10.3% Q2 sales growth.
McDonald's
What it had to solve
Under its Accelerating the Arches growth plan, McDonald's US wanted to make the childhood ritual of birthdays at McDonald's relevant to Gen Z. Grimace, the silent purple mascot of the 1970s, was a nostalgia icon to older generations but a stranger to youth — the brief was to reintroduce him as culture, not museum furniture.
How it works
By 2023 McDonald's US was pushing culturally relevant marketing under its Accelerating the Arches strategy, and birthdays at the brand were a childhood ritual it wanted to hand to a new generation. Its mascot Grimace — the silent purple blob of 1970s McDonaldland — was nostalgia for older customers but almost unknown to Gen Z.
Wieden+Kennedy New York gave Grimace a 52nd birthday: a limited-edition Grimace Birthday Meal with a mysterious purple shake, a retro 8-bit video game, a Spotify playlist, a Snapchat filter and birthday posts from Grimace himself on McDonald's social channels. TikTok users then turned routine trying-the-shake videos into absurdist horror skits, and McDonald's chose not to fight or own the meme — only to nod at it.
The numbers made it one of McDonald's most successful promotions in years: three billion TikTok views, millions of reactions, the shake a top Twitter trend for eight days, and sales that accelerated toward the promotion's end instead of fading. Q2 2023 comparable sales rose 10.3% in the U.S. and 11.7% globally.
The campaign later contributed to six Effie US 2024 awards for three McDonald's campaigns, a sign that the brand's willingness to hand its narrative to fans had become a repeatable strategy.
Why it lands
- A forgotten character given a birthday is a blank canvas: Grimace was known enough to be nostalgic but open enough for Gen Z to remix.
- The purple shake was the perfect meme prop — visually strange, unnamed flavor, drinkable in a 10-second video.
- Restraint was the strategy: by not claiming or correcting the trend, McDonald's kept the moment authentic to the fans who made it.
- The promotion mechanics (limited meal, social takeover, retro game) created the ignition point, while the meme provided the fuel.
What it did
McDonald's called Grimace's Birthday one of its most socially engaging campaigns of all time: millions of reactions and three billion TikTok views, with the shake the top Twitter trend for eight days and sales momentum that built toward the end of the promotion. Q2 2023 comparable sales rose 10.3% in the U.S. and 11.7% globally, growth the company tied to culturally relevant marketing; the work later helped McDonald's collect six Effie US 2024 awards across three campaigns.
What you can take
Give fans a prop, not a script: the brand's job was supplying a purple shake and a birthday story; letting Gen Z write the punchline turned a promotion into culture.
Since then
The Grimace Birthday Meal ran from June 12 to early July 2023 and closed as one of McDonald's most successful limited-time promotions in recent memory, with operators reporting demand that built rather than faded. McDonald's cited the campaign in its Q2 2023 earnings (U.S. comparable sales +10.3%, global +11.7%), and the Effie US 2024 ceremony gave McDonald's six awards across three campaigns, including 'Grimace's Birthday Gets Out of Hand'. The episode became a reference point for letting user-generated culture drive a brand story rather than scripting it.
Sources
- McDonald's Demonstrates Consistently Strong Results (Q2 2023)
- The Grimace birthday promotion was an even bigger success than McDonald's expected
- Los ganadores de los Effie Awards Estados Unidos 2024
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card