In McDonald’s 2017 Christmas campaign, a little girl sparks a new family tradition with nothing more than a carrot stick. As inherited traditions are crumbling in contemporary times, the fast food chain highlights the value of rituals and invites people to create new ones with the brand as a backdrop. We explore the insights behind the ad, and the reasons why today’s world needs rituals more than ever.
In McDonald’s ad, a little girl is sitting in the restaurant having finished her food except for a carrot stick, which she insistently clutches to save ‘for the reindeer’. When her brother later points out that a sleighful of reindeer will call for more than a single carrot, the family heads back to McDonald’s to pick up more, creating a new Christmas tradition in the process. “Our TV ad focuses on one little girl’s preparation for the big day, saving a carrot stick for the reindeer, a tradition the whole country will relate to,” says Emily Somers, VP of marketing and food development at McDonald’s UK. “The wider campaign is also designed to reflect those moments of preparation that we all go through at Christmas.”
McDonald’s ad highlights the importance of rituals, which come to the forefront of people’s minds during the festive season. Holidays come laced with traditions, but they’re in flux; while 90% of US Gen Yers celebrate Christmas, only 40% see it primarily as a religious occasion. With the decline of past systems of meaning, people are looking for new rituals to fill up the ideological vacuum that’s left. And this decay of old rituals comes at a time when people need them more than ever, given that rituals help to create stability during times of uncertainty.
"When there's a bit of uncertainty in the world, looking for a little bit of order is something humans like to do,” says Michael Norton, professor and member of Harvard University’s Behavioural Insights Group. “It could be by doing a private ritual. It could be by doing a social ritual. Rituals make people feel like they have a handle on things." Today’s world is rife with uncertainty, from political upheaval to climate change, and isn’t short of chaos, either – the start of 2017 saw ‘dumpster fire’ (slang for an uncontrollable disaster) named as America’s word of the year. As people come to terms with a world that’s beyond their control, McDonald’s is inviting them to build up the smaller rituals that help to cement social bonds and quell anxiety.
Mira Kopolovic is a behavioural analyst at Canvas8, which specialises in behavioural insights and consumer research. She has an MA which focused on artist-brand collaborations and visual culture, and spends her spare time poring over dystopian literature.
