The international restaurant chain, McDonald's, considered the fast-food giant, is known as a leading brand that has strongly adopted minimalist advertising based on the LESS IS MORE concept in the sense of using fewer resources to create greater meaning. In minimalist advertising, brand components such as logos, brand colors, packaging, and products are used to convey different marketing messages. These components give a lot of freedom to create and bring up phenomenal ideas to the extent that McDonald's brand colors have become so iconic and widely recognizable.
According to studies and practical evidence, minimalistic advertising strengthens the brand's positioning and image and leads to an increase in customer recall and loyalty towards it, and this is because:
1- Minimalist ads are creative, humorous, and powerful, which arouses high consumer involvement.
2- Consistency in the use of the same brand elements in marketing communications.
3- Strengthen the presence of the brand's components and make them part of the daily current affairs in the everyday life of the consumers.
4- A positive and enjoyable emotional connection between the brand's components and the festive events with its audience.
To understand this better, here are some successful examples of advertisements put up by McDonald’s.
She used arches to advertise that the place was open 24/7
When the restaurant decided to give free Wi-Fi, they communicated it by using the image of chips.
they use the arcs to give an exact location to the nearest restaurant.
A campaign was launched for emotional involvement on Halloween
and at Christmas and New Year's Eve
and during the Muslim holidays in the Arab world
McDonald's recently launched a global, social, and humorous campaign "Raise the arches" led by the Leo Burnett London advertising agency. This campaign was considered another creative and bold step in embracing minimalist advertising as it let its iconic golden arches logo take center stage. This is done by taking ownership of the act of raising the eyebrows and attributing it to the same M that is the logo of the rainbows. This connection comes to produce a signal to desire a McDonald's meal and create a new universal communication code, without words, to invite friends to join this celebration. The innovation in this advertising is creating A new trend where simple and everyday activities for all of us will become part of the McDonald's brand experience which will allow everyone to release the pressures of life for a moment and invite friends to join in a fun and good experience.
This is the first-ever McDonald's movie that does not feature a McDonald's restaurant or food.
Michelle Graham-Claire, Senior Vice President, VP of Marketing at McDonald's UK and Ireland said:
"In such a challenging time, the “Raise Your Arches” invitation to McDonald's provides the nation with a small but necessary moment to let go and feel good, we hope that the campaign raises arches and smiles throughout the country."
to bring this trend to life and increase consumer engagement, McDonald's is expanding the campaign to include television and social media advertising that includes Snapchat and Instagram lenses that will allow users to raise their eyebrows to invite their friends to McDonald's.