The trend: Fast-food restaurants are leaning into nostalgia to get customers through the door.

• McDonald’s The Grinch Meal holiday special, which includes Dill Pickle “Grinch Salt” McShaker Fries and a pair of novelty socks, is so far outperforming the chain’s Minecraft Meal and the revived Snack Wrap, Guillaume Huin, the company’s senior marketing manager, wrote on X.
• Burger King’s SpongeBob menu “is swimming off trays,” with some restaurants running low on items less than a week after launch, the company told Nation’s Restaurant News.

Zoom out: Nostalgia marketing can be a highly effective way of getting consumers to open their wallets: Nearly half of US adults (48%) say they are somewhat or extremely likely to purchase an item if it makes them feel nostalgic for the past, according to a CivicScience survey.

• It’s especially potent among younger generations: Roughly 3 in 5 consumers ages 18 to 29 (61%) would buy products that evoke nostalgia.
• The vast majority—83%—of nostalgia-influenced customers would be somewhat or very willing to spend extra on products that remind them of the past.

The big picture: McDonald’s and Burger King’s use of nostalgia—and popular IP—is enabling them to build emotional connections with consumers and create additional reasons to visit their restaurants.

Still, the strategy has its limits. Longer-term benefits may prove elusive, as Wendy’s discovered. While its Krabby Patty campaign delivered outsize growth in Q3 2024, the fast-food chain is now planning to close hundreds of stores as it struggles to attract lower-income consumers.

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