It seems that McDonald’s is deploying a three prong approach to growing its share of the fast food consumer market among women: healthy menu choices; more focused messaging; and creating fashion and celebrity-driven buzz about the brand’s traditional character icons.

Global Chief Marketing Officer Mary Dillon is making some organizational changes, as well as refocusing the multinational’s marketing efforts towards specific demographic groups.

“… In addition to evolving the chain’s “I’m Lovin’ It” advertising platform to emphasize the “it” over the “I,” Ms. Dillon plans to evolve McDonald’s women’s marketing to more strongly appeal to them as mothers. …” (AdAge)

Pricing, salads and happy meal toys seem to be attracting this group, but McDonald’s is also working the celebrity cachet/retro style angle as well, designing faux classique tshirts for sale at select upscale boutiques.

” … To design the campaign, McDonald’s hired DIC Entertainment Corp., an entertainment-licensing company that has been successful at reviving nostalgia brands such as Strawberry Shortcake. The two chose vintage T-shirts, currently a hot fashion item, as their first licensed product. The shirts, which retail for about $55, include the chain’s old ad characters, such as Mayor McCheese and Grimace, and ad slogans, such as “You Deserve a Break Today.”

To get the word out to the cool crowd, McDonald’s set up a big display in February at Lisa Kline, a trendy Los Angeles boutique. The company also sold the shirts at Intuition, another well-known L.A. store. The two stores are known for their celebrity clientele.” (WSJ/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Now, how could this guerilla marketing go wrong? Someone wearing a “Big Mac Attack” shirt shows up on SmokingGun after being arrested for assault? The “Grimace” tshirt shows up in a made-for-DVD movie produced and shot in the San Fernando Valley?

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