McDonald's China - We Love To See You Play

For Children’s Day 2025 McDonald’s China asked Eva Cremers to put her spin on the McDonald’s universe and encourage consumers to tap into their own “inner child”.

The creative challenge: how does an artist bring their own voice to a brand with such an established world already?

It all started with a nugget of course.

...and obviously some Eva magic.

The Brief

The campaign centred around the chicken nugget, one of McDonald’s most iconic menu items, and one that’s hugely popular with children and adults alike. The brief was to hero the nuggets and showcase the existing McDonald’s characters in a way that appealed to Gen Z and Gen Alpha families, and consumers who embrace their inner child.

Bringing her own signature style to a globally recognisable brand, Eva set about crafting memorable characters and designs that would not only create an immersive and whimsical experience for the kids, but a nostalgic journey for the parents and families, calling back to their days of Happy Meal toys.

But simply creating characters wasn’t enough for Eva...

“One of the challenges was how to take such a rich world and put my own take on it. I didn’t want to simply do Eva versions of the characters I wanted to extend the whole McDonald’s universe! So I created a whole theme park where nuggets and characters were all having fun together, bringing in key McDonald’s elements as easter eggs throughout. I wanted the world to represent the fun and innocence you have as a child”

- Eva Cremers

Eva crafted a key visual for the campaign filled to the brim with her signature joy and wonder, featuring the nugget characters on bumper cars, ferris wheels and rollercoasters.

Jelly worked closely with our production partners K&W who operate out of China to help smooth the process and any challenges that come with working with a brand on the other side of the world.

“The final deliverables for the campaign were constantly evolving as the project grew and grew, so we decided to create everything from an isometric POV for maximum flexibility. This meant elements could be lifted and used independently, but that also the whole scene could be extended for different touchpoints.”

- Ross Frame, Head of Integrated Production at Jelly

The campaign ran for 2 x weeks across the whole of China and included an exclusive holiday-themed menu, limited-edition packaging, bespoke merchandise, pop-up themed restaurants, and a TVC from Leo Burnett.

And it didn’t stop there. There were even pop up theme parks featuring the rides and characters from the hero artwork in key cities around China.

“One of the nicest things for me was seeing how people were interacting with everything I created. From posing for photos, to creating videos where the toys were driving around China. It really showed how my work resonated so well with the public, which is exactly what we were trying to achieve”

- Eva