McVOTE '86: The Peak of McDonald's Marketing
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- 4 min read
I’m a huge buff for vintage pop culture. Whether it be collectibles or commercials, I am all about going on YouTube and watching long blocks of all advertisements for hours on end.
Was there any business from the 1980s and 1990s that were more consistent with commercials and marketing than McDonald’s?
The McDonald’s promotions team were relentless with their promotions. For Saturday morning cartoons and various shows marketed to kids, they had their McDonaldland campaign, complete with Ronald McDonald, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, Hamburgular, and the rest of the gang. For adults, it was a different beast entirely.
Seemingly on every broadcast network, especially during prime time, you’d have ads with catchy jingles and delicious looking food. For example, “It’s a Good Time for the Great Taste”, the “Do You Believe in Magic?” during the mid-1990s, and, my personal favorite, “Food, Folks, and Fun”.
The genius of it was that McDonald’s wasn’t just selling you on the food; they were selling the “experience”.
I, literally from childhood, absolutely bought in. When I lived in Queens as a kid, there was a McDonald’s down Myrtle Avenue. At four, I got to “meet” Ronald McDonald and I was never the same.
Moving out to Jersey a few years later, every other Friday, my Dad would always pick up McDonald’s for dinner. It could’ve been a Happy Meal or a Big Mac Extra Value Meal, but we all experienced it as a family. I went to a few birthday parties at McDonald’s on Racetrack Rd in East Brunswick, and loved every second of it.
Even when the BS Express, Dan Murdoch and I went to McDonald’s late-at-night following training at the ACE Wrestling Academy, we loaded up on the Dollar Menu and just enjoyed relaxing following a long drive.
As weird as it sounds in 2026, McDonald’s selling on experience really worked.
The marketing campaigns were out of this world too. The frequent collaborations with Disney, the Monopoly Game Pieces, the 1984 Olympic Games, and the Menu Song $1,000,000 contest.
To this day, however, there is one McDonald’s marketing strategy that has driven me batty. There is one that really had no public payoff, yet had three of the coolest pieces of memorabilia ever.
That campaign? McVote ‘86.
In 1986, McDonald’s began trying to push an old school “political” campaign onto seeing what was the fast food juggernaut’s “Best Burger”.
It was a vote based on three:
The Big Mac: Debuted in test markets in 1967, rolled out nationally 1968
The Quarter Pounder Debuted in local markets in 1971, rolled out nationally in 1973
The McDLT: Debuted in test markets in 1984, rolled out nationally in 1985
The McDLT was an interesting concept in itself, as, in an answer to the Burger King Whopper, McDonald’s really pushed the holy heck out of it, rumored to have spent upwards of $100 million on marketing the “hot side hot, cool side cool” of the packaging inside of a Styrofoam container it was placed in. It even put Jason Alexander, pre-Seinfeld, as the face of its initial commercial, singing its virtues.
There were, to my knowledge, only two ads on television pushing this campaign.
Yet the strategy was there: McDonald’s wanted you, the consumer, to come into the restaurant to spend your money to try all three burgers and vote on which was “best”, courtesy of a McVote ‘86 ballot that came free of charge. To further the push, depending on your order, you were able to get one of three collector glasses, pushing their respective “candidates”.
The experience of a fun, “political” campaign, complete with going to McDonald’s restaurants was definitely a fun concept.
I was only a baby, so I had no clue of this “vote” at the time. However, nearly forty years later, I can safely say that, thanks to antique shops and flea markets, I was able to purchase all three glasses.
Yet, I really wanted to know: WHO WON THE VOTE?
According to ChatGPT, and they never lie, it was never publicly stated on who “won”. Many speculate that the McDLT was the big loser, which led to its eventual demise. However, it was only discontinued in 1991 due to environmental activists complaining about the “waste” of McDLT Styrofoam containers in landfills.
However, I wanted to know.
I reached out to McDonald’s online via their “Contact Us” button, and got an automated message back, thinking I was talking about future “Happy Meal” campaigns. I wrote back a similar question, and am waiting on an actual, although doubtful, response. I mean, it WAS forty years ago for goodness sakes.
But I just loved the outlandishness of a “McVote”. I think ideas that “outside the box” need to be attempted in mainstream marketing in our current ages. A lot of ad spots and campaigns in modern times are too bland. There’s no edginess to it. It’s too cut-and-dry.
I’m not also saying to try a “McVote ‘26” either. Especially in this time where politics are incredibly divisive, someone will be bound to be offended
As it comes to creativity alone, McDonald’s has gone there a couple times over this current decade with the Grimace Shake and the McDonaldland Adult Happy Meal. The nostalgia hit has been impressive. But there needs to be more of it across the board. The selling of experience needs to come back.
McVote ‘86 was the peak of McDonald’s marketing. There’s no doubt about it. They sold a bunch of burgers, glasses, and other McDonald’s amenities. They made a legendary commercial scheme. Most importantly, they made a memory.
Isn’t that what fun is all about? I miss those times. I miss that McDonald’s experience.
Jon Harder
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