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For those who don\u2019t remember what life on the internet looked like in 2023, here\u2019s a refresher: girl dinner, the Roman Empire, and a TikTok algorithm painted purple from the McDonald\u2019s Grimace Shake.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The trend was simple, albeit strange: Users would film themselves trying out the purple McDonald\u2019s beverage and then immediately cut to a horror-movie scene of their staged death<\/a>.<\/p>\n The purple vanilla-berry-flavored milkshake was rolled out by the fast-food chain in June of that year as a limited-edition menu item in honor of one of the chain\u2019s mascots, Grimace.<\/p>\n While the fake death trend garnered over 2.9 billion views on TikTok, and reportedly boosted McDonald\u2019s sales<\/a> by 10% that quarter, it was not planned to unfold like it did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf you think we planted the Grimace Shake trend \u2026 thank you. So much. But you think way too highly of us,\u201d Guillaume Huin, senior marketing director at McDonald\u2019s, wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cIf you thought we would never acknowledge the trend \u2026 well, I thought so too at first, so I don\u2019t blame you.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday, almost three years after the trend, Huin took to X to share how the team at McDonald\u2019s and its agency partners reacted to going viral. (Grimace is now apparently taking over German social media after the shake recently launched there.)<\/p>\n Huin\u2019s post offers a rare glimpse into how large companies treat viral moments, often dealing with them from a full-fledged situation room.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u201cPure Gen Z humor\u201d<\/h2>\n