Mcdonald's strategy to return to center stage

If the one with Travis Scott could have seemed a coincidence, the news of a collaboration between McDonald's and J Balvin sounds like the confirmation of a well-established trend of the fast food giant, more and more willing to grab specific slices of the public to the sound of personalized menus and market surveys. The importance of the collaboration with La Flame had already been explained on nss magazine, underlining not only how the Houston rapper was a company before an artist, but above all how the partnership between the two parties brought back the glories of McJordan and of the collaboration with Michael Jordan.

Although the process chosen for J Balvin is the same one used for Scott (a personalized menu by the artist available for a limited time), the Colombian artist is the first Latin star to collaborate with American fast food, a proof of how aims to expand in the ethnic market and in first place for McDonald's, able to offer the fanbase of the artist on duty a product that is virtually accessible to everyone and able to put the reference public in contact with Travis Scott or J Balvin. Just as Virgil Abloh had collaborated with Ikea to create furniture that came out of the price range of the Off-White world, in the same way McDonald's works to create a pop and open to all bridge between artist and fanbase, representing a win-win for all parts. Fast-food finds advertising and earnings by exploiting the image of the artist, a company that, as happened with Scott and as it will happen with Balvin, will take advantage of the opportunity to create an ad hoc merch to monetize in turn on an already profitable agreement . At the same time McDonald's is part of two of the strongest and most important mechanisms in the streetwear world such as that of drops and collabs. On the other hand, it has been for several years that the fast-food giant has been trying to approach specific ethnic groups with the awareness of which they constitute the strongest and most consolidated customer base: African Americans in first place, followed by Hispanics and Latins as evidenced by a survey carried out by Statista.com.

To make Mcdonald's initiative even stronger there is a trend reversal on the world of healthcare, which in 2020 saw a change of course compared to previous years, virtually leaving the field free to fast-food restaurants and rehabilitating junk food starts. It will be thanks to the lockdown and the sudden change in our routines, but never as in the last period do burgers and fries seem to be back in fashion, creating infinite possibilities not only for Mcdonald's, which is one of the lowest offers on the market, but also for its competitor. If in Italy Sfera Ebbasta is one of the names behind the Healthy Color operation, in the United States at the moment there seems to be a lack of a qualitatively higher alternative capable of following in the wake of Mcdonald's and channeling that mix of hypeculture and food that have sent to the attic gourmet menus created by the starred chef on duty.

So don't be surprised if after J Balvin it's up to Justin Bieber or Megan Thee Stallion, a name capable of generating profits and interest without distorting the identity of the artist and the brand. In this sense, Scott was a bit of a sacrificial victim, pushing the potential of the collaboration to the maximum and putting on the market the most absurd he could think of, eventually convincing someone to buy a Chicken McNugget-shaped pillow. The feeling is therefore that the one put in place by Mcdonald's could be a strategy with a very specific future, ready to transform our favorite artist into a menu complete with sandwich, chips and dessert.