Anime appears to finally be taking over all aspects of life in Japan if the new McDonald’s anime commercial is any indication. The commercial is for the new limited GuraCoro, or Gratin Croquette Burger, which the company sells every winter. But instead of promoting it in a traditional TV spot, they decided to make a full-blown promotion using anime.
The McDonald’s anime commercial is made in Idolmaster Cinderella Girls-style, and stars former AKB48 member Atsuko Maeda, veteran seiyu Ayana Taketatsu (voice of Kirino and Yuzu from Citrus), and Aimi (who’s been in BanG Dream and other shows). The three play three friends from university who are out walking in the freezing cold and decide to meet at McDonald’s and share their favorite meal together, as they reminisce about old times.
In addition to the animated commercial, they’ve created “audio dramas” with each girl giving her backstory and what her relationship with the other two girls is…and of course how much eating a Gratin Croquette Burger makes her feel warm inside.
Post a gif that makes you nostalgic about your youth. This McDonald’s anime advertisement really takes me back to my high school days working there. pic.twitter.com/ODn9n3hnwJ
— J-LIST 🎅 (@jlist) August 5, 2019
This isn’t the first time anime has been used in marketing. Companies have learned that one of the most effective ways to catch the attention of young people they want to hire is to use anime imagery, and anime-style posters promoting employment opportunities at restaurants and convenience stores are pretty common. McDonald’s dialed its recruitment efforts to 11 by making a fully animated commercial in which young people get jobs at McDonald’s and find personal satisfaction and enrichment while they cook french fries and hamburgers, as in the gif above.
The big break for anime cross-marketing came in 2007 when Pizza Hut paid for actual product placement in the Code Geass anime, which is why C.C. is always eating pizza. Some limited pizza boxes with Code Geass art were printed and distributed, and everyone thought that would be the end of things. In reality, cross-marketing products directly to otakus proved so successful, that it’s now common for everything from chewing gum to canned coffee to gyudon beef bowl to products in convenience stores to be marketed through anime art and packaging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=27&v=uOeJ31PT7Xs&feature=emb_logo
Today anime is increasingly used to market everything from convenience stores to tampons to official Mai Sakurajima nectar, and I don’t think the trend is going to end anytime soon. The combination of the emotional connection we all feel to well-designed 2D anime characters with the potential for marketing campaigns to go viral around the world is too much for companies to resist.
Did you enjoy McDonald’s anime commercial? Do you think the trend will spread outside of Japan? Give us your thoughts on Twitter!
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