Unbranded Menu

Read the campaign story

Unbranded Menu invited gamers to find virtual foods resembling McDonald’s menu items and share screenshots. The One Show describes creator-led seeding, the #ThisIsMcDonalds tag and coupons exchanged for eligible discoveries. Branding in Asia dates the launch to late 2022. Leo Burnett Group Manila developed the work with McDonald’s Philippines and production collaborators. The campaign made a game around an existing gamer behaviour rather than building a new game world.

Editorial interpretation: the hunt asks people to demonstrate a resemblance themselves. A participant becomes an observer who finds evidence of a familiar product shape in an unexpected setting. That can make a brand association more engaging than simply placing another logo in a virtual environment. The reward also provides a concrete next step, connecting a playful discovery to an ordinary food order.

The campaign’s language about claiming gaming food is promotional rhetoric, not a statement of ownership over generic burgers or game artwork. This analysis does not establish that every publisher authorised every use, nor recommend treating screenshots as automatically free commercial assets. Reported reach and sales effects are not independently verified here. The transferable idea is a rights-aware recognition challenge with clear fulfilment, not an invitation to appropriate another creator’s work or imply an unapproved partnership.

Find an existing behaviour with a natural brand connection

Observe what a community already enjoys doing before designing an activation for it. Screenshot sharing, collecting and noticing visual details can provide an understandable participation pattern. The brand connection should be recognisable without a lengthy explanation, but it should not require pretending that every similar object belongs to the brand. Test whether people see the intended resemblance unaided. A challenge that only works after heavy prompting may be manufacturing an association rather than revealing one. Choose a smaller, clearer territory if the broader claim feels forced.

Resolve rights and platform rules before inviting submissions

A participant’s ability to capture an image does not automatically grant a brand commercial reuse rights. Review relevant publisher and platform terms, obtain permissions where needed and distinguish receiving a submission from reposting it in advertising. Avoid suggesting sponsorship by a game that has not agreed to one. Give participants clear instructions about personal information and unsuitable content in screenshots. For a small-team adaptation, original commissioned scenes or an authorised partner environment provide a cleaner starting point than an unrestricted hunt across many third-party properties.

Design the reward operation as part of the creative idea

Specify eligibility, limits, timing, redemption and customer support before creators announce the challenge. A playful mechanic becomes frustrating when people cannot tell whether their discovery qualifies or when a coupon fails. Train moderators to respond consistently and provide an appeal route for ambiguous cases. Track reward costs and order contribution rather than celebrating submission volume alone. Consider whether the incentive attracts people who would have ordered anyway. The service experience after a successful submission is part of the campaign, not a separate logistical detail that can be fixed later.

A bounded test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: a café could commission an original illustrated scene containing several recognisable menu shapes and invite adults to identify one for a clearly limited, non-random benefit. The café owns or licenses the artwork and states the offer terms beside the image. Test this against a straightforward menu-and-offer post at comparable reach. Use a simple redemption process and record customer questions. Do not require public posting or access to personal gaming accounts. This tests recognition and participation without depending on third-party game assets, uncontrolled screenshots or a claim of ownership over generic food imagery.

Measure correct recognition, qualified entries, redemption success, incremental contribution where a comparison supports it and moderation effort. Separate existing-customer participation from evidence of new demand.

Pause if rights are unclear, the challenge implies an unauthorised partnership or fulfilment cannot honour the published terms.