McDonalds Pure Michigan Marketing Campaign Invites Michiganders to Share a Coke
Pure Michigan celebrated its 10th year in existence as the tourism model for the Mitten State in 2016. The popular Michigan travel brand is now partnering with two of the biggest companies in America to give Michiganders another way to celebrate their state pride.
From August 22nd through September 25th, McDonald’s across the state of Michigan will feature cups with 20 unique phrases celebrating the state of Michigan. The tagline is “Who will you share a coke with at McDonald’s in Michigan this summer and where will your Road Trip take you?”
The 19 phrases listed on the Pure Michigan site are:
- Mackinac Island
- Pure Michigan
- The Motor City
- Yooper
- The Big Mac
- The Mitten
- The Big House
- Tulip Town
- Michigander
- Cottage
- Up North
- Sleeping Bear
- Detroit Red Wings
- Grand Rapidian
- On the Banks of The Red Cedar
- The Great Lakes
- In the Thumb
- Down River
- Euchre Partner
Watch the Pure Michigan video below which features people from the different regions and representing different phrases. Pay close attention to see former Detroit Red Wings fan favorite Darren McCarty outside the Joe Louis Arena. McCarty played 11 seasons with the Red Wings, helping them win Stanley Cups in 1997, 1998, 2002, and 2008.
Take a look at some photos of the cups (photos from McDonald’s MI Twitter page)
The campaign encourages customers to share photos of their cups and use the hashtags #pureMichigan and #MIShareacokemcd . Hawaii is the only other state having a similar campaign with McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.
The Pure Michigan press release says this will be at participating McDonald’s across the state. Michigan has a large amount of McDonald’s restaurants across the state. In 2015, Michigan ranked in the top ten in the nation for McDonald’s per 100,000 people with an average of 6.4.
The bad news may be that some of the regions that have popular phrases on the cups may have a limited number of restaurants to get the cups from. The Yooper cup for example may be popular with people above the Mackinac Bridge, but they have only 6 McDonald’s to get the cup from (Ironwood, Marquette, Norway, Escanaba, Sault Ste. Marie, Newberry, St. Ignace). People in Macinaw City that want the Mackinac Island cup or Big Mac (Mackinac Bridge) cup will have to find a nearby McDonald’s across the bridge in St. Ignace, or nearby cities like Cheboygan (15 miles away) and Indian River (27 miles away). Find your nearest McDonald’s here. *Update-Sources tell us on Facebook that the McDonald’s in Marquette is not participating in this promotion*
McDonald’s gets a lot of criticism as a company that helps make America obese. That has been the subject of many comments on the Pure Michigan Facebook page after this limited time campaign was announced. Woodtv highlighted the positive side of McDonald’s supporting the Michigan agriculture industry as a major buyer of eggs (90 million), beef, apples, and cucumbers. The company also provides 32,000 jobs and adds $437,000 to $1.7 million per store in employment income that helps local economies.
An old McDonald’s Michigan ad campaign
The Share a Coke campaign originated in Australia in 2011, before coming to America in 2014. In June of 2014, Coca-Cola saw a nice gain in carbonated beverage sales thanks to the campaign that put 250 of the most popular teen and millennial names on bottles and encouraged consumers to “Share a Coke”. The hashtag #shareacoke become a major global trending topic and saw over 500,000 photos shared with the hashtag.
Let’s try and keep this positive and celebrate the state by collecting these Pure Michigan cups. We will be doing our best to get their hands on them.
