The Big Mac has always been the star of the McDonald’s lineup, and the sandwich with the secret sauce is finally getting its just rewards – its very own clothing line and lifestyle collection.
The collection, introduced as the company struggles with declining global sales, includes everything from clothing to wallpaper to bed sheets, all with crisp white backgrounds adorned with the restaurant’s signature sandwich, the picture-perfect image of a Big Mac you only see in advertisements, never in the restaurant when you actually order one.
McDonald’s launched the lifestyle collection Tuesday at a “McWalk” fashion show in Stockholm, Sweden. Sales at bigmacshop.se are currently limited to only Swedish customers and the profits will be donated to Ronald McDonald House Charities.
The Big Mac collection was part of McDonald’s imlovinit24 campaign, a global marketing effort that occurred simultaneously in 24 cities in 24 different countries on March 24. Other than Stockholm’s fashion show, the campaign included a pajama party in Milan, a pop-up library in Paris, a Jessie J concert on a double-decker bus in London, and orchestra performances for restaurants in Vienna.
This isn’t the first time McDonald’s released meat-inspired clothing in Sweden. The company originally created the Big Mac thermal underwear for McDonald’s sponsorship of the Swedish Alpine and Cross Country Ski Team, but brought the items back for this campaign.
The marketing campaign has a lot of work to do.
In February, the world’s largest hamburger chain announced January 2015 sales marked the eighth straight month of global sales declines. The brand was particularly bruised in the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa region, where sales fell 12.6 percent in January; analysts had expected only an 8.4 percent drop. Restaurants in that region are still trying to recover from last year’s food supplier scandal in China, where a major McDonald’s supplier was filmed allegedly using expired meat.
“Brand recovery” is a top priority in Asia, according to a statement by the company.
In the United States, McDonald’s is fairing only marginally better. In March, the company announced that overall U.S. sales were down 4 percent “due to ongoing aggressive competitive activity.”
