McDonalds
Gourmet Creations
Services:
Digital Advertising Services: Elevate Your Brand’s Presence
Contracted by
DDB
Insight
McDonald’s Australia was in the middle of a major shift toward more premium, gourmet menu offerings, and DDB Sydney led the evolution of this new product line across the brand’s digital ecosystem. I was part of the digital design team responsible for bringing McDonald’s Gourmet Creations and Gourmet Burgers to life online - a campaign that focused on elevated ingredients, richer flavour profiles, and a more mature food identity compared to the traditional McDonald’s range. The challenge was to build a digital presence that looked and felt more premium while still fitting seamlessly within the recognisable McDonald’s world.
My role centred on designing the digital experience: mobile takeovers, interactive banners, social assets, product displays, and responsive web layouts that showcased the gourmet ingredients in a clean and visually appetising way. The black-slate backgrounds, ingredient callouts, and photographic compositions created a more adult visual language, positioning the burgers as something more substantial and indulgent. I worked across both concept refinement and production-ready design, ensuring that each digital placement - whether a mobile ad, a carousel, or a desktop rich-media unit - delivered the premium cues that the brand was pushing forward.
Idea
The campaign leaned heavily into the product story. Each digital asset highlighted hero ingredients such as Tasmanian brie, crispy bacon, whole-leaf lettuce, chorizo, and Angus beef, giving McDonald’s a chance to speak to quality in a way that was more editorial and less traditional fast-food. This required a clean and disciplined UI approach, removing visual noise and letting the photography do the work. The mobile executions were particularly hands-on, with full-screen interactive units designed to feel as smooth and tactile as possible, encouraging people to explore the range and find their nearest Macca’s.
Impact
The result was a cohesive digital rollout that helped reposition McDonald’s new gourmet offerings as elevated, modern, and craveable. The consistency across formats — from mobile takeovers to banner suites to product landing pages — helped strengthen the perception of McDonald’s as a brand capable of delivering more premium flavour experiences. For me, it was an opportunity to shape the look and feel of a major national digital campaign and contribute to one of McDonald’s most significant product shifts of the mid-2010s.
