5 Incredible Franchise Marketing Campaigns

It’s hard to miss the latest celebrity meal available at McDonald’s or to see who serves the best chicken sandwich with incredibly long lines at fast-food restaurants. Then there are the non-food companies that are creating unforgettable characters or sparking a social media movement on gender inequality. These five franchises have created marketing campaigns that will inspire even greater ideas in the years to come.

McDonald’s capitalized on its collaborations with celebrities by launching celebrity meals. The brand has several partnerships with celebrities where they launched their own meals, including Travis Scott, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, BTS and, most recently, Saweetie.

The McJordan Special featured a quarter pounder with bacon and barbecue sauce, fries and a soft drink, while Saweetie is the first woman to land a McDonald’s celebrity meal, which includes a Big Mac, fries, a four-piece McNugget, tangy barbecue sauce, “Saweetie ’N Sour” sauce and a Sprite.

The well-dressed, albeit a little beat-up-looking, character called Mayhem from Allstate’s commercials has been causing a ruckus for home and car owners for years. The character highlights unexpected vulnerabilities and disasters that can pop up in life, and how being a customer of Allstate puts you “in good hands.”

The world collectively sighed when they heard the beloved breakfast joint International House of Pancakes was changing its name to the International House of Burgers. The restaurant launched the public relations stunt to raise awareness of the brand’s burger options in addition to breakfast plates. The stunt resulted in more than 28,000 media stories and, in the first 10 days of the campaign, 1.2 million tweets. Additionally, burger sales quadrupled year-over-year, and its lunch and dinner sales increased 15% and 28% respectively.

It’s hard to pass up a good chicken sandwich, and when Popeyes released its fried chicken version, the brand sold out of the product in two weeks. With drive-thru lines that stretched from restaurants to streets, Popeyes’ fried chicken sandwich was a major hit as it expected to sell around 60 sandwiches per day at each of its locations. It also spurred interaction between other chicken brands, including Chick-fil-A, and started the #chickenwars trend.

Social media and social justice groups ignited a mission to raise awareness regarding the prices and taxes on feminine products. European Wax Centers jumped in on the action with the #axthepinktax campaign, drawing attention to the fact that women are charged more than men for comparable products and services, also called the Pink Tax. Numbers showed that women were spending more than $1,300 more per year on hygiene products at prices that were 43% higher than similar products also sold to men.