The WcDonald’s campaign was an homage to anime’s long-time representation of McDonald’s as WcDonald’s across the genre. To make it come to life, McDonald’s turned their restaurants into WcDonald’s with special WcDonald’s packaging and sauce, anime tv commercials, and the development of exclusive anime mini-episodes and manga chapters created by anime studio, Studio Pierrot, and manga artist, Acky Bright.
Our objective was to create a digital hub for McDonald’s WcDonald’s campaign. We were asked to design a microsite that would hold weekly drops of new anime episodes and manga chapters, as well as introduce McDonald’s fans to the over 20 characters created for the campaign.
We wanted to showcase the episodes and chapters developed by some of the most talented artists in the anime and manga genre in a way that honored their work. We focused on designing the backgrounds and user flow of the microsite to direct users to the new work dropped weekly – these weekly drops being a first for any McDonald’s microsite. Along with the look of the site, we also created background animations that made the 20+ characters pop.
The challenges we overcame included creating a look and feel in a way that always respected and best represented the genre, in addition to meeting deadlines while working on an international timeline; the microsite designers being in the U.S. and the artists in Japan.
In the end, we created an eye-catching site for McDonald’s fans to visit and learn more about the WcDonald’s universe.
The microsite introduced some firsts for McDonald’s in terms of their digital landscape. The WcDonald’s microsite was the first time McDonald’s hosted locked digital content that fans needed a QR code from WcDonald’s-themed packaging to open. It was also the first time McDonald’s created digital content released in weekly installments for fans.
The microsite rounded out the entire WcDonald’s immersive experience, allowing fans to escape into the WcDonald’s universe watching episodes, reading chapters, and learning more about some new favorite characters. Most importantly, we helped bring WcDonald’s to life by celebrating the world of anime, successfully bringing two fandoms together and creating a dedicated space for fans to see the work.
