McDonald’s new holiday coffee cup campaign will feature Doodles characters in a bid to connect with Gen Z and NFT fans.

The pink, blue and purple holiday cups featuring Doodle characters in snowy scenes will be available starting on Nov. 18. Doodles began as an NTF project made up of colorful pastel characters by artist Scott Martin. Many fans used their Doodle as a profile picture on social media. McDonald’s customers can earn digital and physical products. 

The “GM Spread Joy” campaign creative was handled in-house by Doodles, with Publicis Groupe handling media. The campaign is a reference to “GM,” which stands for “Good Morning,” a shorthand that became popular among the NFT community.

Customers who purchase a Doodle McCafe coffee at participating restaurants can unlock digital collectibles through the McDonald’s app or in-store. All Doodles McCafe customers will get special access to Doodles animated content, and accessories and digital wearables for their Doodles avatars, including purple fleece Grimace-inspired pants, a Grimace bucket hat, a McDonald’s T-shirt and a french fry bucket hat.

Customers must opt-in to McDonald’s emails and rewards and must have or create a Doodles account to claim their collectibles.

Guillaume Huin, McDonald’s senior marketing director, teased the partnership on X on Tuesday, causing the price of Doodles to increase.

The campaign will feature a song by Marley Bleu and produced by Pharrell Williams. The official music video will come out in early December.

“The Doodles’ fanbase has for a long time fantasied about a McDonald’s collab, and it’s only fair to say they made it happen: we could not be more pleased to make our fandoms collide,” said Chief Marketing Officer Tariq Hassan.

The Doodles collaboration is the latest example of McDonald’s tapping into niche fandoms in its marketing. In the past few months, McDonald’s has done smaller campaigns aimed at “Genshin Impact” and “Jujutsu Kaisen” anime fans. The Doodles cup collab comes as other restaurant chains including Starbucks and Dunkin’ are promoting their own holiday cup designs.

Doodles was founded in 2021 and grew in popularity with the rise of NFTs, with collectors eager to have a cartoony, colorful character in their collection. Since then, the company has grown and expanded into video content. In 2022, the brand turned heads with a pop-up event at SXSW and named Pharrell Williams its chief brand officer. In 2023, Doodles acquired Golden Wolf to become its in-house animation studio to work with more brands. This year it introduced Doodles TV, a streaming service where Doodles NFT holders could watch the animated special “Dullsville and the Doodleverse.” Williams produced the short’s soundtrack, which features songs from Lil Wayne, Swae Lee, Lil Yachty, Coi Leray, and Kyle Richh, and was the first release from Doodles Records.

Doodles’ prior collaborations included working with Williams on an NFT pack that included a redeemable NFT for a physical pair of Adidas Sambas x Pharrell, Crocs with Doodles Jibbitz charms, a tracksuit line with Adidas and a Doodles bottle for Arizona Iced Tea. Doodles also sells its own physical merchandise, including figurines, hats and a rug.

This story has been updated with a new quote from McDonald’s.