In late 2022 McDonalds brought back Adult Happy Meal toys with their cactus plant limited time promo. The toys flew out the drive thru windows and immediately hit the resale market for insane values. It was like watching beanie babies in hyper mode. In November 2023, McDonalds announce it would be bringing back Adult Happy Meals in general for the first time in 25 years and as you can guess those meals will come with toys. This marketing ploy has been implemented to capture the nostalgia of a generation that grew up wide eyed with excitement at the prospect of toys in our fast-food bags. 

I still remember the batman forever cups and the DC super hero looney tunes toys, and that’s what McDonalds hopes for as some of  us millennials now have kids of our own or just have the disposable income to be collectible hunters in hopes of turning a profit from these toys, but I don’t think that this is a singular case of just McDonalds moving in on the toy in food nostalgia of the 80’s and 90’s. 

I work at a restaurant chain that in the past year has done 2 instances of toy giveaways with limited time alcohol drinks. I won’t say what the toys were so as not to disclose my place of work (not hard to find out). Those drinks did amazingly well in sales until……we ran out of the toys. The amount of adults who did not have children who disappointingly told me “ I only wanted the drink for the toy.”   Was staggering and eye opening from a marketing perspective. People don’t want better quality food or even cheaper meals; just a plastic toy that costs cents on the dollar to produce shoved into their drink or bag of food. 

For fastfood and middle tier priced family restaurants I think this is a smart advertising angle, that plays on nostalgia, speculative markets and scarcity. If these toys are limited runs you will see the same strange frenzy for Adult Happy Meal toys that you’d see for SUPREME drops. 

The future can be weird, happy, dystopic, whatever, but it better come with a toy.