Paris 2024. The Olympics. McDonald’s France was not an official sponsor. On August 10, 2024, we made them the most talked-about brand at the Games. The tool: one Instagram post, one sauce, and of course… Steph Curry.
France and USA in the men’s basketball final. More than 8 million French viewers. A tight game until the fourth quarter, when Steph Curry made four consecutive three-pointers in the final three minutes. France lost 98-87, and the name Curry saturated French social media immediately. McDonald’s France has a Classic Curry sauce. We saw the opportunity and moved within hours: an image of the sauce with the caption “For obvious reasons, we are considering removing this sauce. For a minimum of 4 years.”
McDonald’s US picked up the thread: “oui’ll take the curry sauce if u don’t want it.” Jean-Guillaume Bertola, Head of Marketing and Communication at McDonald’s France: “We saw an opportunity around this name and our sauce. We posted, and from there, everything took off.” We generated 2.5 billion impressions with zero media spend.
