The creative team at DDB Sydney has revealed that tapping into “nostalgia” and celebrating “Aussie culture” boosted McDonald’s summer sales.
'Squad Down Under' mirrors the behaviour of a group of Australian mates who arrange a Macca’s run through a group chat and head down to their local restaurant.
The work marked the return of four McDonaldland characters, Birdie, Hamburglar, Officer Big Mac and Grimace, who were gradually phased out of marketing campaigns in the early 2000s.
The brief from McDonald’s tasked the creative agency to create an ad that built on the ‘Macca’s run?’ summer platform.
DDB creative partner Jack Nunn said the idea was to come up with a campaign that would sustain a 12-week period, appeal to a broad audience and promote a range of new products.
“Every Aussie knows of going on a Macca's run. It's part of our culture. So we wanted to turn the volume up on that and use it as a lens to launch these new products,” he told AdNews.
“We wanted to bring good vibes for 2025 and thought what better way than to showcase what a Macca's run is but with an unexpected twist that it’s not just four random Aussies doing it.”
Nunn said more than 100 scripts were drafted but the team settled on the final concept because of its simplicity.
“We wrote on the initial pitch: ‘Let’s show an ad where a group of four friends get in the car and go on a Macca's run over summer. Oh, by the way, it's not just any four friends.’ And then we had an image of the four characters,” he said.
“Because it was one of the first ideas, we felt we had to do the due diligence and keep going. But the further we went, the more we realised that there was something magic in this really, really simple idea.”
Nunn revealed some of the other ideas which didn't make the cut included dialogue-based concepts, comedy scripts and more sincere approaches.
“We had anything from ideas where one person in Australia announces they’re going on a Maccas run, and almost like the pied piper, every single other person seems to want to get in on it and join them,” he said.
“We had abstract ideas, like a group of seagulls strutting down the street to Saturday Night Fever, happy that Macca’s run season is here and it's their time to swoop and grab your chips when you're not looking and unsuspecting.”
Nunn said shooting the commercial three days before Christmas was a “technical nightmare”.
“The Grimace suit was already in the country, but we had to get the Hamburglar and Birdie suits shipped from overseas,” he said.
“The Officer Big Mac costume was created from scratch by a special effects company that produces Hollywood-level costumes. They built all the 3D renders and then set these amazing things as if they were going to make a costume for a Marvel film.
“We had all these crazy conversations about details like how many sesame seeds should be on his head and whether his pickle nose was at the right angle.
“We needed to work out the dimensions so four people in giant costumes could sit in the same car together. We had to then modify cars to fit them.”
Nunn said a basketball player was cast for Grimace's role, and stunt drivers were hired to drive the Cadillac through the streets due to the limited visibility in the costumes.
“There’s a scene where Grimace is playing basketball,” he said.
“Because of how difficult it is to actually be in that costume, to even stand and walk around, we cast a semi-pro basketballer just so they could be able to bounce the ball, look like the right move when they back down the defender and then nail the shot.”
Nunn said it was one of the most challenging ads he’s made.
“You can’t show an ad in Australia if the people in the car don’t have a seat belt on, so we had to get custom seat belts that could fit around Grimace’s giant torso,” he said.
“We probably listened to about 500 different tracks collectively with three different sound houses.
“The whole team had sleepless nights checking the weather forecast in the lead up to the shoot because these characters needed to be in a convertible, and it would have been an absolute nightmare had it rained.
“The good thing is that it’s fun and easy to watch, but actually it was like the iceberg below the surface.”
Nunn said he is extremely proud of the campaign, which helped McDonald’s exceed its “pretty aggressive” sales targets over summer.
“It’s an ad that’s got a cool tune to it. It’s not trying too hard. There’s no wall-to-wall voice over telling you what to think or feel. It's just a vibe,” he said.
“I’ve sat in an edit suite and watched it 1000 times, but when it comes on, I still really like it.”
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