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Big Mac's New Clothes

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Big Mac's New Clothes

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With its new packaging design, McDonald's places the spotlight on the quality of the ingredients in the presentation of the food — uniform worldwide. The plan calls for all 31,000 McDonald's restaurants in 118 countries to be equipped with the new packaging by the end of 2010.

In November 2008 the global market leader in chain restaurants began with the introduction of an entirely new generation of packaging for its burgers and company. The design of the packaging features a basic structure that is uniform around the globe while working in 21 languages to fulfil the national demands of the individual markets. The first step was the introduction of the new packaging in the USA, United Kingdom and Ireland at the end of last year. During the course of this year, France, Germany, Austria, Japan, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, China, Canada, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and the Gulf States will follow. The third phase is to be completed by the end of 2010. At that time, only the new packages will land on the tables, also in the Latin American countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, Italy, Korea, Thailand, Egypt, Israel, Switzerland, the Caribbean, Turkey and the remaining European countries.

Focus on Quality

"We can offer several interesting facts on the quality of our products," explains James Woodbridge, Marketing Director for McDonald’s Deutschland. What makes a Big Mac a Big Mac? What are the secrets of a Hamburger Royal TS or a McRib? The company intends to present precisely this information to its guests in an interesting and captivating manner with its new product packaging. Concise copy and attractive images offer information on the special characteristics of the individual products and their nutritional values. Above all, however, the new packaging design aims to present a globally uniform corporate identity. The language style, colours, fonts and photographic techniques are identical worldwide. Nonetheless the concept is flexible enough to allow adaptation to the various demands of the respective countries and regions — for example through the use of a total of 21 different languages and locally relevant "storytelling" in each restaurant in all of the 118 countries. The new packaging was developed by Boxer, a subsidiary of The Marketing Store Worldwide with headquarters in Birmingham, UK. Boxer already participated in the development of the current slogan, "I'm lovin' it" and designed the packaging for the McDonald's "Global Casting Call" campaign.

The Environmental Programme

McDonald's lives high standards for active environmental protection. Way back in 1987, the company initiated an environmental programme that has been continuously improved. The cardboard product packages consist of 72% recycled fibres, coated in fresh fibres to ensure food quality and hygiene. According to corporate information, the packaging materials are approximately 87% renewable raw materials, of which roughly 56% are recycled materials. Bread and salads are delivered to the restaurants in reusable containers. Since the early 90s, all packaging has been collected and recycled. Meanwhile the restaurants allegedly recycle 90% of all remnants. The delivery boxes are also made of 50% recycled paper and are returned to the materials cycle after use. McDonald's environmental management goes much further than the critical look at packaging, reaching from biodegradable cleaning agents to environmentally friendly technologies to comprehensive environmental protection training for employees.

From a Negative Myth to a Congenial Cult

The corporation can look back on a long road: The brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their remodelled fast-food restaurant in California in 1948. The Big Mac was invented in 1968; it was also in the 1960s that the first restaurants with the golden M — the "golden arches" — were opened outside of the USA. McDonald's reached Europe in the early 70s, where the company battled with a rather poor image for many years. The gaudy packaging and American mentality were more part of a negative myth here for quite a while yet. Over a relatively long period of time, however, McDonald's was able to establish itself as a clean, service-oriented and reasonably priced company with good quality products. One important step in this direction was the revamping of the packaging in the late 1980s and the early, attention-getting communication of their recycling of packaging materials. Today more than 58 million people eat in McDonald's restaurant around the globe every day.