McDonald’s launches new menu of customer hacks, and Lil Yachty jingle
TORONTO — Canadians who have combined their favourite McDonald’s dishes will soon get to see some of their creations hit the fast-food chain’s official menu — a phenomenon growing in popularity across the quickserve industry.
The golden arches announced its new Remix line on Tuesday, marketing a trio of limited-time sandwiches and a reimagined McFlurry with versions of its 1980s menu jingle remixed by U.S. rapper Lil Yachty and Montreal-born instrumentalist Mike Clay.
“This is tapping into what customers and what fans are already doing today and just making it official and having fun with it,” said Alyssa Buetikofer, McDonald’s Canada’s chief marketing officer.
The Remix promotion features a chicken cheeseburger and a Surf ‘N Turf sandwich with two beef patties and an Alaskan Pollock filet. Both will be topped with cheddar cheese, pickles, onions, ketchup and mustard.
A third sandwich — the Sweet Chili Junior Chicken — adds a sweet chili Thai sauce to the regular Junior Chicken.
The Sweet Chili Junior Chicken was a no-brainer to include.
“That is something that we have hundreds of customers come in and do in our restaurants across the country every day,” Buetikofer said, adding it is likely the fast-food chain’s most hacked item.
Accompanying the sandwiches is a McFlurry filled with apple pie and caramel.
Narrowing the Remix menu to four items meant parsing through data, trawling social media and carrying out taste tests ensuring the chosen hacks are actually appetizing.
Though, there were lots of contenders.
“If you think about other quick-serve restaurant brands, they have one menu icon, maybe two. We have a whole menu of iconic products,” Buetikofer said.
“We figured why not be proud about that, have some more fun with it and drive some engagement and participation with our customers, too.”
The Remix promotion makes McDonald’s Canada the latest in a string of fast-food giants to let consumer creations guide their menu additions and harness some of the vitality behind dishes to boost brand awareness and profitability.
A&W Canada launched the spicy piri piri potato buddy — a hash brown-filled sandwich inspired by a Brampton, Ont., franchisee — in February, while Harvey’s brought its customercreated pickle pickle poutine to menus last November.
McDonald’s Canada previously toyed with menu hacks in 2023, offering a Chicken Big Mac customers had long assembled.
Lisa Hutcheson, a retail strategist with J.C. Williams Group, feels the inclination customers have to get creative with their orders comes from some wanting dishes that meet their eating habits, and others being enticed by social media.
“Influencers are looking for things that they can use to drive their Instagram moments,” she said.
Online, there’s an endless scroll of unofficial hacks, including people who dump packets of sauce into their McNugget boxes and shake the container to douse the chicken morsels.