Almost like in Moscow, January 1990: a very long queue at McDonald’s in Annandale, VA. All because today is the only day when McDonald’s brought back the Szechuan sauce to their menu, which hasn’t appeared there since 1998. Tomorrow it will be too late. Yesterday it was still too late.
There is this animated series “Rick and Morty”. In one of the episodes, Rick admits that the sole purpose of his space travels is the Szechuan teriyaki sauce that McDonald’s sold in 1998 as part of a collaboration with Disney to celebrate the release of the movie “Mulan”. McDonald’s came up with a cool trick – they sent the series creator a special box of the sauce with a note saying they made it happen, and they found a parallel dimension where it’s always 1998, and here, the sauce is yours, and also a little bit goes to the fans online.
The story is not about McDonald’s, but about marketing, really. Following in the footsteps of Nike, Adidas, and Harley Davidson, McDonald’s has moved from being a manufacturing company to a marketing company, where the product is not as important as the idea or the legend behind it. Nike, for example, also generates hype: a notification pops up on your phone that a limited collection of sneakers is on sale nearby (and yes, they are expensive), and you can make an online reservation right from the app (but you have to pick them up in a crowded place on the designated day, and they might even run out). A very clever idea. Now, traces of this are appearing in McDonald’s too.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 