"Pairing our playful, Minecraft-inspired creative with GumGum’s contextual targeting allowed McDonald’s to meet Gen Z in gaming and pop culture environments where they feel most at home."
McDonald’s wanted to strengthen its connection with Gen Z, a digitally native audience that expects brands to engage authentically in the spaces they love most. Traditional media wasn’t enough to capture this generation’s fragmented attention. The challenge was to enter these cultural environments, like gaming and online video, in a way that felt natural, immersive, and aligned with McDonald’s playful brand identity.
McDonald’s teamed up with GumGum to connect with Gen Z in the spaces that matter most to them: gaming, entertainment, and pop culture. Using GumGum’s contextual intelligence, the campaign strategically identified environments where young audiences were already immersed in creativity, play, and discovery, mindsets that perfectly aligned with McDonald’s nostalgic, Minecraft-inspired creative.
By analyzing thousands of content signals in real time, GumGum’s platform ensured McDonald’s ads appeared within the most relevant moments, whether fans were reading about trending games, catching up on pop culture, or exploring new recipes.
This mindset-driven approach allowed McDonald’s to show up naturally in the Gen Z experience where they were engaging with content across Food & Drink, Pop Culture, Sports, and Video Gaming content.
These placements maximized resonance, with the campaign over-indexing in multiple categories, including a 53% stronger attention lift in Family and 46% in Food & Drink.
Creative execution amplified that precision targeting. High-impact placements like Desktop Skins and OLV (Online Video) brought the Minecraft world to life, transforming traditional ad spaces into playful, immersive extensions of McDonald’s brand story.
The Desktop Skin, in particular, delivered standout results with a 4.6s attention time.
Meanwhile, OLV activation achieved millions of video completions, driving authentic engagement with immersive storytelling.
By leading with context, McDonald’s didn’t just reach Gen Z, it connected with them authentically. McDonald’s campaign proved that when creative storytelling meets the right context, even the most playful concepts can make a powerful impact. By using GumGum’s contextual intelligence to meet Gen Z where they play and create, McDonald’s unlocked new ways to connect with the next generation of fans, authentically, and at scale.
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