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McDonald's Viral Grimace Shake Challenge: A Branding Nightmare or a Trendy Triumph?
How McDonald's navigated the being at the center of a dark humor challenge
Jordan Scheltgen
July 20, 2023
What do you do if your brand is trending, but that trend doesn’t align with your company?
That’s the problem the McDonald’s social media team faced in late June.
So what happened?
On June 12th, McDonald’s released its now infamous Grimace Shake as a token of appreciation towards Grimace’s birthday.
Shortly after, a trend fueled by Gen Z (and milkshakes) started to dominate TikTok and Snapchat.
This trend led to billions in reach, millions of mentions and engagements.
When McDonald’s released the shake, I’m sure they planned for some virality and content to be shared featuring the shake.
But what happened next, no one could plan for; TikTok users started the Grimace Shake challenge. This is where a happy-go-lucky creator buys the shake and congratulates Grimace on their birthday, then a quick cut to a horror scene with people vomiting the shake before seemingly passing.
Not exactly the light-hearted humor McDonald’s is known for.
Watch one of the videos (below) to see what I mean.
Warning: these videos are NSFW.
@minionlover123456 Very berry #grimace #grimaceshake
So, creator after creator copied this format, implying that Grimace had committed heinous crimes by poisoning the shake.
Not a good look, right?
Well, maybe it was. These videos were done in jest, bringing (i) sales and (ii) virality to McDonald’s.
Where it gets challenging is from the brand account. Guillaume Huin, the Head of Social for McDonald’s, explained what happened behind closed doors and how the brand decided to respond.
I have received so many questions about the Grimace Trend and how McDonald's handled it.
I shared on LinkedIn but here is an insider view from the social media team of what happened :
- if you think we planted the grimace shake trend, thank you. So much. But you think way too… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…— guillaumehuin (@HuinGuillaume)
4:44 PM • Jul 12, 2023
The Takeaway
In social there always seems to be a rush to respond to trends, but if your brand is at the center of the trend, it’s okay to take your time and formulate a response. McDonald’s did this through a subtle hat tip to their fans. How you do this with your brand will vary, but rest assured, taking a beat to think through is always a good idea.
