Famous Orders: Driving App Adoption Through Culture-Led Campaigns

Process involved:

Concepting, Art Direction, Visual Design, Production Design, Layout Design, Photo-retouching, Prototyping, Experience Strategy

McDonald’s Famous Orders transformed celebrity partnerships into a powerful growth engine for mobile app adoption. By uniting cultural relevance with seamless digital experiences, these campaigns encouraged customers to download the app, engage with exclusive content, and build repeat ordering behavior.

As part of the team supporting these launches, I focused on creating cohesive experiences across the app, marketing, and in-store touchpoints, helping position the McDonald’s app as the primary ordering channel while preserving brand consistency at global scale.

Building on the momentum of the Travis Scott Meal, the J Balvin campaign brought another culture-driven moment into the McDonald’s app. With heightened expectations and increased app traffic, the experience was designed to clearly reflect campaign messaging while delivering a seamless, low-friction ordering flow throughout the month-long launch.

The in-app experience emphasized clarity, familiarity, and personalization, helping both first-time and returning users confidently navigate the ordering journey. By aligning app entry points, visual treatment, and ordering flows with the broader marketing campaign, the app reinforced its role as the primary and most reliable way to access the J Balvin Meal.

The BTS Meal represented one of McDonald’s largest global, culture-led launches. Beyond ordering, the app became a destination for fan engagement by introducing experiences aligned with K-pop fandom behaviors.

Within the app, we explored on-trend engagement patterns, including collectible digital content that allowed fans to download and share images of their favorite BTS members (“bias” cards). These experiences extended the campaign beyond a transactional order and into emotional, fan-driven interaction, reinforcing the app as the exclusive gateway to the BTS Meal.

The Mariah Carey Holiday campaign focused on sustained engagement rather than a single ordering moment. Over 12 days, the app unlocked a rotating set of featured menu items alongside a holiday merch giveaway, encouraging customers to return daily.

To support the complexity of this campaign, we worked closely across teams to design a pattern, system-based approach that could scale across multiple products, dates, and promotional states—without overwhelming the core ordering experience.