McDonald's Malaysia makes fries the main course — 'Fans Fries Meal' wins Golden Kancil

In Malaysia, McDonald's fries are not a side dish in the cultural sense: fans dig through the bag for the last fry, swipe them off friends' trays and drop by the restaurant just for the golden sticks. The brand saw an obsession without an official channel — no way to enjoy McFries as a full meal. The creative question came from Leo Burnett's associate creative director Jay Loh: what's stopping fries from being the main, if they're so good?

The answer was a world first: the Fans Fries Meal, a meal that started with fries and ended with fries, with XXL fries as the centrepiece alongside a drink and a side. Priced at RM10 and available nationwide from 11 to 13 July, it launched on International French Fry Day. The night before, McDonald's took over Bukit Bintang — home of its first Malaysian store and its 2022 Fries Crosswalk — with a synchronised digital out-of-home display that bathed the Golden Triangle in golden fry visuals, then converged on the main screen above the Bukit Bintang outlet to reveal the meal.

The strategy was built on three pillars: cultural timing on French Fry Day, location dominance in KL's Golden Triangle, and integrated engagement across social, paid media, ground-level activations and even hijacking its own ads. The result was 80,000 meals sold — selling out in two days — plus RM6.4 million in earned media and 35 million global impressions. At the Kancil Awards 2025, the campaign took the Golden Kancil, the show's single best-of-show award, for Leo Malaysia.