Last year, I suggested that McDonald’s add variation to the messages on their drive-thru menu screen.
Rather than simply offering the message “Mmm, great order!” they could easily add a multitude of messages to extend their branding and, more importantly, be surprising, amusing, and engaging.
All the things a great storyteller knows to do.
This month, they finally changed that message, but once again, they switched to a single message, displayed again and again and again every time you visit.
This time, it’s Grimace, a purple being of indeterminate species, telling me that my food looks really good. It’s fine, but again, once you’ve seen it twice, it becomes wallpaper:
Irrelevant, boring, and forgotten.
It can’t be that hard to add a series of randomly rotating messages to these drive-thru boards to bring surprise and delight to customers. Can it?
Again, without much effort, I’ve come up with a list that McDonald’s could at least start rotating through the system:
“Wise choice, eater of food!
“Exellent eats, bruh!”
“You’ve got great taste!”
“You chose wisely.”
“The Force is strong in you, hungry one.”
“Yummy choice!”
“Your tastebuds rock!”
“Spectacular decision! You should be President!”
“Delicious collection of calories!”
“Tasty eats, hungry person!”
“Scrumptious!”
“Sapid! I bet you didn’t know that means delicious!”
“Quite the palatable assemblage of food items!”
“A meal fit for a king! Or a queen! Or court jester!”
“Mouthwatering goodness!”
“Delish!”
“Piquant! Which means yummy!”
