Gotta Catch ‘Em All with McDonald’s Happy Meals!

Good news for Pokemon fans in Malaysia!

It appears that McDonald’s will soon offer Pokemon toys for all Happy Meal sets in Malaysia.

The campaign will begin on November 15 and end on December 12, 2018. Two different toys will be distributed every week, and you can pick your favorite Pokemon. It is understood that this campaign will also run in McDonald’s Singapore.

It will be interesting to imagine the queue this time. Previously, when McDonald’s Malaysia drove Malaysians in throngs when they sold their Despicable Me minions.

The strategic pre-movie marketing paid off. Despicable Me 2 was a box office hit in many countries and set the record for the most successful opening weekend for an animated film in Malaysia.

The soil was ripe for the movie’s partnership with McDonald’s to blossom.

For the month of July, nine different McDonald’s Happy Meal Minion collectables were made available in Malaysia, with around two released each week.

It was a brilliant tie-in with the fast food giant and marketing powerhouse to promote the movie.

The demand for Happy Meal Minions was so high that outlets frequently ran out of stock within hours of release.

MARKETING spoke to the Marketing Director of McDonald’s Malaysia, Eugene Lee on this campaign.

McDonald’s partnerships or movie tie-ins with toys has always been successful. Especially during the release of the Minion toys and now Pokemon. What do you think raises the hype?

The Happy Meal properties that McDonald’s ties up with are usually extremely popular or evergreen ones that both kids and adults enjoy.

Hype is usually generated by both the property themselves, and the Marketing that McD does to promote them.

I think what makes them even more attractive is the fact that they are given out FREE with any Happy Meal. Who could resist something that’s free right?

Pokemon has always been popular in Malaysia. We’ve known it since we were kids with the series, cards, the virtual augmented reality game and now the movie. What are you anticipating for the product launch?

We’re extremely excited about the Pokemon property, and we’re projecting to sell 3x more Happy Meals than we usually do.

In the past, extremely popular properties like Hello Kitty and the Minions would sell 2 to 2.5x our usual baseline.

With the hype we’re generating through Marketing for Pokemon, it’s sure to be an even bigger hit than the others.

Well, you gotta catch ’em all!