Would you like a side of camaraderie with your Big Mac?

Working at McDonald’s is a tough gig. It’s not just flipping burgers. It’s scrubbing grime off the floors, it’s making sure the fries are not left in the fryer a second too long, it’s eating your lunch during ten-minute breaks, it’s handling customer requests for endlessly customisable burgers, and it’s cleaning up after a child drops a milkshake on the floor. Ad Nut doesn’t know how food and hospitality servers do it, but they somehow do.

In new work by McDonald’s Australia, an integrated employer brand and recruitment campaign was launched to help the fast-food giant recruit crew for its restaurants across the country. The campaign, titled ‘Mates make it Macca’s’, is meant to highlight the crew’s camaraderie, their daily rituals and inside jokes, and the “joys and perks” of working with mates.

The campaign kicked off across the AFL and NRL grand finals which will headline a multi-month campaign period that will feature on Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snap as well as integration into McDonald’s CRM programme and its mobile ordering app. The campaign also includes The Macca’s Burger Challenge, a gamified experience to let users virtually assemble a burger.

Ad Nut can speak to the joys of working with your friend—especially if a work environment allows for building enriching relationships. But Ad Nut must also bring up that McDonald’s isn’t exactly a model employer when it comes to healthy working conditions.

In August this year, the brand was slapped with a wage theft claim of at least AU$250 million in the Federal Court over alleged denial of paid breaks to workers. The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA) claims that workers at more than 1,000 McDonald's sites were denied their uninterrupted 10-minute break when working fours hours or more during a shift. One worker said that crew members were told if they want their paid break, they cannot get a drink or go to the toilet. 

Just listen to this branch manager’s account:

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by SDA UNION (@sdaunion)

As the country’s biggest employer of youth in the country, this McDonald’s crisis reads like exploitation to Ad Nut. With knowledge of the context above, Ad Nut is not exactly lovin’ it.

CREDITS

Client: McDonald’s Australia
Chief Customer Officer: Chris Brown
Marketing Director: Amanda Nakad
Senior Brand Manager: Maxine Netrayana
Assistant Brand Manager: Jaya Virk

Creative Agency: Akcelo
Group Creative Director: Louise McQuat
Creative Partner: Oskar Westerdal & Jon Foye
Senior Art Director: Grga Calic
Senior Copywriter: Edwin Hughan
Chief Strategy Officer: David Di Veroli
Strategist: David Gray
Head of Design: Mark Berry
Senior Designer: Tien Vu, Mori Reyes & Jamie Muscat
Business Lead: Gabriel Montalban & Anthony Brooker
Content Production Lead: Mark ‘Bucket’ Summerville
Senior Producer: Matt Barber, Michael Debach & Edward Krause
Digital Producer: Lucien Kronenberg & Daniel Burns
Editor, Social: Sam Bryant
Motion Designer, Social: Fraser Dinsdale
Creative Services and Operations Lead: Bonnie Ryan
Creative Project Delivery Lead: Sophie Tschuchnigg
Chief Executive Officer: Aden Hepburn

Film Production: Collider
Director: Dylan Duclos
DOP: Max Walter
Executive Producer: Karen Bryson & Olivia Handken
Producer: Melissa Weinman
Editor: Brad Hurt
Grade: Matt Fezz
Online: Matt Campbell

Photography & Social: Sam I Am
Photographer: Benito Martin
Producer: Sally Andersson

Original Music & Sound: Rumble Studios

Media: OMD
PR: Mango

Ad Nut is a surprisingly literate woodland creature that for unknown reasons has an unhealthy obsession with advertising. Ad Nut gathers ads from all over Asia and the world for your viewing pleasure, because Ad Nut loves you. You can also check out Ad Nut's Advertising Hall of Fame, or read about Ad Nut's strange obsession with 'murderous beasts'.