On a Tuesday morning in late November of 2020, McDonald’s tweeted what at the time seemed to be a passing observation without much significance: “one day you ordered a Happy Meal for the last time and you didn’t even know it.”

But the tweet—and consumer reaction to it—went on to become the genesis for a major marketing and retail effort: Cactus Plant Flea Market Box, the limited-edition food and merchandise boxes created in partnership with the buzzy streetwear brand that the fast food giant has positioned like a Happy Meal for adults. 

The meals, which hit restaurants on Oct. 3, appear to be a major hit. McDonald’s declined to release sales figures. But the boxes are selling out in various regions, according to local media reports. And the promotion has drawn tons of media attention, from local TV stations to late-night talk shows, including “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.”

“It actually exceeded our expectations,” Jennifer “JJ” Healan, McDonald's VP of U.S. marketing, brand content and engagement, said in an interview. “It has been very successful. And what we have really loved is seeing just the interaction with our brand as we put our brand in culture.”

The program is just the latest example of how brands are generating marketing ideas by monitoring social media reactions. The 2020 tweet, which drew more than 25,000 likes, revealed a hunger among adults to reconnect with the feeling of ordering Happy Meals as children. “That was one of our most successful, engaged tweets that we had,” Healan said. “So it started with reimagining, reigniting that experience.”

Also read: Kraft calls for McDonald's crossover in new brand stunt

Streetwear plus fast food

The agency behind the effort, Wieden+Kennedy New York, had already been considering introducing an “artists residency,” in which marketing assets like the Happy Meal would be used as a canvas for new art from a rotating group of contributors, said Brandon Henderson, an executive creative director at the agency.  

Once adult Happy Meals became the focus, the agency and brand had to find the right partner. The idea for Cactus Plant Flea Market arose during a discussion among W+K planners and creatives. It was an unlikely suggestion, given the streetwear brand’s history and place in streetwear culture.

Cactus Plant Flea Market was founded in 2015 by Cynthia Lu, a protege of Pharrell Williams, who had hired her in 2012 to work in the PR office of his streetwear brand, Billionaire Boys Club, according to a 2020 profile in GQ magazine. Cactus Plant Flea Market’s hoodies, t-shirts and other apparel are known for their playful style and use of “double vision” —four eyes—that is the identifiable feature of its mascot, Cactus Buddy. The gear emerged as a cult favorite, worn by everyone from Kanye West to Tyler the Creator. Cactus Plant later put out collaborations with brands running from Nike to Stüssy, and even partnered with fashion designer Marc Jacobs.

Still, the brand has maintained an aura of elusiveness and mystery. Lu is notoriously press shy. The late fashion icon Virgil Abloh was quoted in the 2020 GQ profile as saying, “Her anonymity is not a shtick to make the design go further. The designs stand on their own, and they don't need to be promoted.” 

Cactus Plant was not available for interviews.

McDonald’s, the world’s largest restaurant chain, is nothing if not promotional, with a massive ad budget and a need to constantly conjure new reasons for people to visit its more than 13,000 U.S. restaurants. 

'Very clear vision'

Lu’s Cactus Plant Flea Market and the fast feeder had enough in common for the partnership to work, according to Wieden+Kennedy.

“Cactus Plant is a brand that is just very positive, very open, very colorful, very popular. They just seemed kind of like the perfect match,” Henderson said. “They're kind of the embodiment of what we wanted people to feel when they open this thing up and grabbed a collectible out of it.” 

McDonald’s engaged The Narrative Group to secure Cactus Plant’s participation and broker the deal. It has not disclosed financial terms. The chain, which normally fiercely guards its trademarks, relinquished creative control, with McDonald’s and W+K ceding much of the direction to the streetwear brand.

“We were minimal in anything that we would change,” Henderson said. “They had a very clear vision from the box down through the TV.” 

What emerged was a Happy Meal-like box designed in Cactus Plant’s aesthetic, with McDonaldland characters shown with the four-eyed style. The meals include a Big Mac or 10-piece Chicken McNuggets, fries and a drink. Each order includes one of four figurines—Grimace, Hamburglar, Birdie or Cactus Plant's “Cactus Buddy!”

The TV ad depicts the characters ordering the box in a drive-thru. It is set in Cactus Plant’s fictional world, rather than at a real-life McDonald’s, which is a departure for the chain, Healan noted. 

The figurines have quickly become a collector's item, with fans racing to get each one.

A secondary market has emerged on sites such as eBay, where unopened sets are being sold for more than $100. 

Targeting multiple generations

True to streetwear style, Cactus Plant and McDonald’s plugged a limited-edition drop of merchandise hosted at Cactus Plant’s website, where as of Tuesday most gear had sold out, including a $150 Hamburglar costume and an “all beef” hoodie that features a four-eyed hamburger.

Cactus Plant wiped its Instagram feed clean before the drop, and now only shows two McDonald’s-themed posts, including photos of Ronald McDonald and Cactus Buddy sitting on a bench—which toured New York City as a tease before the promotion was announced.

While the meal box capitalizes on nostalgia that baby boomers, Gen Xers and older millennials might have for Happy Meals, the collab also targets younger generations who are more familiar with streetwear culture. The TV buy reveals how McDonald's is reaching out to several age groups—spots are running on TeenNick, Disney Channel and Cartoon Network, but also on ESPNU, Discovery Channel, Oxygen and TNT, according to ad tracker iSpot.tv.

“Tapping into nostalgia through the lens of our McDonaldland characters has helped folks who are older connect,” Healan said. But Gen Z is “all about Cactus Plant.” 

Of course, not all the attention has been positive. Jeremy Schneider, a food and culture reporter for NJ.com and The Star-Ledger, complained in a column that “if you’re going for true nostalgia, maybe don’t make the toy a bland, lifeless partnership with a hypebeast fashion company — and a creepy one at that,” suggesting that had the chain instead could have used comic book or Ninja Turtle toy that “would have turned the Millennial nostalgia up to 11.”

Kotaku.com, which covers gaming, published a widely cited story headlined “McDonald's Workers Are Begging People To Stop Ordering Adult Happy Meals” that cited Reddit threads in which workers call out the logistical challenges of keeping up with demand. 

Nation’s Restaurant News noted that worker complaints highlight labor shortages across the industry, reporting that “unionizing efforts are growing in the industry in part because employees feel understaffed as they manage buzzy promotions through more channels, like delivery and curbside."

McDonald’s in a statement said: “We had a feeling the Cactus Plant Flea Market Box would be big…and leading up to the launch, we prepped crew with training and resources in anticipation of higher traffic in restaurants. After just a few days, the excitement we’re seeing from fans has been nothing short of incredible. Our restaurant crew members are the best in the business, and we appreciate everything they’re doing to serve customers during this limited-time promotion.” 

But the negative press has been outweighed by a large volume of positive and neutral media coverage, including in unexpected places, such as Food&Wine, which has covered the collab.

“You've had a ton of impressions, a lot of media stories,” Jonathan Maze editor-in-chief at Restaurant Business magazine, said in an interview. “It hasn’t all been positive from what I can see. But you’ve still got a lot of people talking about it ... and when you’ve got a brand like McDonald’s that can get people talking about something, that is probably a real positive.”

He added: “You are taking existing products and adding a toy and putting it in a box and putting a higher charge on it than you would otherwise, so I would call it a success.”

What’s next?

Healan declined to reveal if McDonald’s will continue the adult Happy Meal approach with another partner. But that would appear to be a safe bet, considering the business strategy behind the effort involves what McDonald’s refers to as “platforms”—which refers to marketing that lives beyond a one-hit-wonder. Under W+K, the chain has particularly dug into what it calls “fan truths,” referring to sourcing ideas from how regular people talk about McDonald’s, including on social media.

That was the secret to the fast feeder’s hugely successful “Famous Orders” campaign that put a celebrity spin on the notion that everyone has a go-to McDonald’s order. The specialty meals began in 2020 with the Travis Scott Meal and continued with collabs involving J Balvin, BTS and Saweetie.

No other Famous Orders collabs are planned for this year, Healan confirmed, while subtly hinting that McDonald’s might continue leaning into the adult Happy Meal strategy. “We have some other ideas that we are wanting to bring forth for the brand,” she said. “And this is one [Cactus Plant] that actually continues to show the strength of a fan truth. And we want to continue to surprise and delight our fans.”

For now, another nostalgia-driven Happy Meal has already been announced: McDonald's Halloween pails, first available in 1986, return on Oct. 18.