How the Mets and McDonald’s Benefit from the ‘Grimace Effect’
New York Mets fans taking the 7 train to Citi Field on Tuesday for Game 3 of the National League Division Series may encounter a beloved mascot while riding trains draped in his likeness. Yet the character in question will not be the big-headed Mr. With his, the badass from the baseball mascot circle first established in 1963 – but Grimace, the lumpy, purple cartoon character that McDonald’s introduced in 1971.
It’s the latest development in a surprising, largely unplanned partnership between the Mets and the world’s most ubiquitous fast-food chain, a partnership that has made Grimace a symbol of this Mets team and now envelops the New York City subway system. One train (all 11 cars) will have a Grimace wrap and will depart Hudson Yards at 1:00 PM prior to the 5:08 PM game against the Philadelphia Phillies.
“We saw so many social conversations where people were photoshopping Grimace’s face sticker on the purple Metro Line 7,” said Amanda Mulligan, director of social media and influencer at McDonald’s. “And so it felt perfect that we could bring some of that Grimace flavor to the commute for all the Mets fans, knowing that everyone would be riding the 7 train to Citi Field. There could even be a surprise appearance from Grimace himself on the subway.
The connection between Mets and Grimace originated in a coincidental way ceremonial first pitch thrown by the character at Citi Field on June 12. By most standards the toss wasn’t good, although it was commendable for someone in such a voluminous outfit. More importantly, it preceded — or some would say fueled — a Mets winning streak.
Social media took off and the McDonald’s-Mets partnership grew to the point where a purple chair was installed at Citi Field in September.
The Grimace chair now occupies a place of honor at Citi Field. (Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)
“From a brand standpoint, I’ve seen it increase our overall awareness and our overall top-of-mind, not just attention, but I would say kind of passion and love for the brand,” said Andy Goldberg, head of the Mets. marketing officer. “Because we’re bringing together two things that people really have a lot of love for, and also a little bit of whimsy.”
There was a previous relationship between the Mets and Mickey D’s. McDonald’s had been a Mets sponsor for at least a decade, said Brenden Mallette, the team’s senior vice president of corporate sponsorship. And it is certainly in vogue for different brands to connect with each other; an abbreviation has even been developed using the name of one company, the letter X, and then the name of the second company, for example Mets X McDonald’s. But the strange but fruitful combination that has emerged over the past four months is ultimately not something that either side was able to fully engineer.
“If we could do this more often, I think we would like it, but then it might not be that special, right?” Mallette said.
If the Mets hadn’t started a seven-game winning streak on the day of Grimace’s first pitch, this probably never would have happened. But even once that happened, the executives involved insisted that the “Grimace Effect,” as it’s sometimes called, really wasn’t their creation.
The grimace effect 🟣 pic.twitter.com/aRBKkMFEwZ
— x – New York Mets (@Mets) June 18, 2024
Once fans jumped on the first court, the team and restaurant chain opted to play things slowly to see where the social media winds would blow.
“When we first started seeing the momentum of the fans getting behind it, we quickly realized, ‘Let the fans take over this. Let the fans do what they do,” Goldberg said. “As someone on my team said, ‘Leave the Internet, Internet,’ which I thought was a great way to put it. … It’s not ours. If we force it, it becomes really inauthentic.”
Goldberg followed that advice from Brielle Speranzini, the senior director of the integrated brand marketing team. The team has sprinkled Grimace here and there. For example, when the 2025 schedule was announced, Grimace appeared in a promotional video. But the Mets appear to have avoided force-feeding as the players continue to win on the field.
“What was so surprising here is the continued positivity we saw around the conversation,” Mulligan said. “Our concern all along and during the first winning streak was, ‘Okay, if this ends, are people going to blame Grimace? Are they going to turn on Grimace?’ And we didn’t see that. We continued to see so many positive conversations from people looking to re-grim for the first pitch and reignite that winning streak.
Cross-promotion of IP comes with some nuances. When Grimace visits town, McDonald’s doesn’t just send a giant purple costume to the park. One of the usual actors playing Mr. With playing, this day is not spent working in a Mickey D’s outfit.
No, Grimas must be brought in specially and will not arrive alone.
“I met Grimace,” Goldberg said. “I haven’t met the person in Grimas. He comes as a costume, and the person who plays him, and a handler. And from what I understand, there are only two Grimaces in the entire world. They are very difficult to book, but they have been very accommodating to us.
“But they don’t send the costume. It’s not like, ‘Hey, do what you do.’ Grimas has its own ways, its own way of doing things, and it’s owned and owned by McDonald’s, and that’s who travels. And it is a fascinating world, the mascot world.”
McDonald’s representatives did not respond to questions about how many Grimaces are actually walking the Earth, or what it takes to book one. But ultimately, both the Mets and McDonald’s — the latter aided by PR firm Golin and ad agency Wieden+Kennedy — say the combination has been valuable for their brands, though neither company shared relevant numbers or dollar figures.
“There are ways we can measure the impact of earned conversations,” Mulligan said. “In this case, we weren’t looking at it so much from a business perspective, but more so, this is something completely unexpected that happened in the culture, and we responded very quickly, and we just wanted to continue to feel that conversation.”
Not everything the Mets have tried this year has worked so well. In August, the team invited Hailey Welch, an internet star who went viral for a sexual joke, to make an initial pitch. panned by some for the choice. The team has pursued an aggressive marketing strategy and believes that while an effort may sometimes miss the mark, it will yield positive results in the long run.
“That’s exactly it,” said Goldberg, who said Welch’s decision “is what it is, and we’re moving on.”
In the meantime, Grimace continues to provoke positive discussions. Karen Tiber Leland, CEO of New York-based Sterling Marketing, said there is “always an element of luck and serendipity.” And a idiosyncratic connection like burgers and baseball can be mutually beneficial, even if it seems strange at first.
“Imagine there are two rooms, and you send a McDonald’s representative to a room of a thousand people, and you send a Mets representative to a McDonald’s room of a thousand people,” says Leland, who has no experience with either parties work together. “They all get an opportunity to speak to a new audience space that they may not have spoken to, and they leverage the credibility of the company that houses them in that space.”
It’s unclear what happens to the Grimace Effect for the Mets after this season. A McDonald’s outpost at Citi Field is not something that has been discussed at this time, Mallette said. Goldberg pointed out that Shake Shack already has a presence in the park. (“There’s no problem with the two of them, by the way, they supported it, so that was cool,” Goldberg said of Shake Shack.)
Somehow, Mets fans probably gave both companies a run for their money.
“One way to look at the dollar value of that partnership is to look at the media attention that both brands receive,” Leland said. ‘They get your media attention for free, right? This article you are about to write is media attention for them. They didn’t pay for it, so that’s advertising money that no one had to pay.”
(Top illustration by Dan Goldfarb / The Athletics; Photos: Marcus Ingram/Getty Images)
