Across the first eight months of 2025, McDonald’s shifted from occasional toy tie-ins to a calendar built around collectibles. The company paired physical keepsakes with digital extensions, layered kid-focused Happy Meals with adult-oriented souvenirs, and used platform-native moments to make each drop feel like an event. The approach dovetailed with solid financials in the June quarter, as management credited “standout marketing” alongside value offers and menu innovation for driving performance.
From Movie Worlds to the Golden Arches
The spring collaboration with A Minecraft Movie crystallized the new playbook: a coordinated adult meal and a kids’ Happy Meal, each bundled with collectibles and a scannable code that unlocked a branded mini-game. Running across roughly 100 markets and timed to the film’s April release, the promotion married physical collecting with in-game rewards—an early signal that 2025 would blur the line between restaurant and fandom.
July extended the momentum with “Lil McDonald’s,” a nationwide U.S. run of 21 miniature brand icons—from tiny registers and fry stations to Boo Buckets—engineered to be traded, displayed, and completed. McDonald’s then staged an oversized pop-up at Santa Monica Place, turning miniature play into a photo-ready, real-world attraction and feeding the social content loop.
Nostalgia Goes Premium
On August 12, McDonald’s put adult collectors at center stage with the McDonaldland Meal, the brand’s first full-scale revival of its classic character universe in decades. Beyond a limited-edition shake, each order came with one of six metal souvenir tins filled with postcards and stickers, which the merchandiser designed to spark repeat trips and set completion behavior. The campaign also extended into fashion and travel through capsule collaborations, making nostalgia wearable and giftable.
Crossovers Built for Set-Completion
Also launching August 12 in the U.S., a TMNT × Hello Kitty Happy Meal fused two evergreen IPs into 12 mash-up figurines, each with a character card—another trigger for “collect-to-complete” behavior that reliably drives multiple visits. Looking ahead, McDonald’s has teased a BTS Happy Meal featuring seven TinyTAN-style mini-figures, a drop that is almost guaranteed to mobilize global fandom and adult buyers when the details are finalized.
Scarcity and the Aftermarket
McDonald’s has also leaned on geography to heighten desire. In Latin America—Brazil, among them—a limited F1: The Movie promotion released two 1:43-scale die-cast cars (McDonald’s livery and APXGP, the film’s fictional team). Sold via a premium combo or a la carte, the minis moved quickly, fed local resale markets, and generated press about sell-outs and price points. Scarcity wasn’t a bug; it was the point.
Why It Matters
Collectibles provide McDonald’s with a repeatable lever that complements value promotions without compromising the brand’s value. They create timed “events” that dominate feeds, lure both families and adult collectors, and extend the brand into fashion, gaming, and travel through collaborations. In a crowded, price-sensitive year, turning toys into traffic—and traffic into comps—has become a core part of McDonald’s 2025 operating system.
