McDonald’s turns to Uncle O’Grimacey as it looks to rebuild sales

Uncle O’Grimacey is making an appearance in McDonald’s ads for the first time since the 1980s. | Photo courtesy of McDonald’s

Can Uncle O’Grimacey get McDonald’s back into consumers’ good graces?

The fast-food giant on Tuesday announced the return of its Shamrock Shake, something the company does about this time every year in advance of St. Patrick’s Day. 

This one, however, features a campaign involving Uncle O’Grimacey, Grimace’s green-hued Irish uncle who was first used to market the mint-flavored shake in the mid-1970s but hasn’t been seen in company ads since the mid-1980s.

It’s the latest example of the company tapping into nostalgia, and Grimace, to build sales. And it comes at a crucial time for the Chicago-based company. 

Sales at the chain stumbled toward the end of 2024, as an E. coli outbreak out west hammered sales in a number of markets and wiped out what had appeared to be an early-October recovery brought on by the chain’s marketing efforts. Bad weather in January may have also complicated matters in the first half of the year. Analyst Peter Saleh in a note this week said that sales “remain anemic.” 

Likewise, Kalinowski Equity Research lowered its same-store sales projections for both the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 by half a percentage point based on the results of a survey of McDonald’s franchisees. Analyst Mark Kalinowski, like Saleh, blamed the E. coli fallout and bad January weather. 

Quick-service restaurant traffic declined 1.9% in December, according to Revenue Management Solutions, wiping out a traffic recovery in October and November. 

The Shamrock Shake first made an appearance in 1967, when Hal Rosen, a Connecticut McDonald’s owner, created a mint version of the chain’s shakes to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. It was adopted chainwide in 1970, according to the company.

Four years later, the company used the shake to raise funds to build the first Ronald McDonald House. McDonald’s is doing something similar this time around. Franchisees will donate 25 cents for every shake sold to Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC), with the goal of raising $5 million. 

“This year, we are getting back to the first fundraiser that started our incredible partnership with RMHC,” Michael Gonda, chief impact officer for McDonald’s North America, said in a statement. 

Grimace and nostalgia have both worked well for McDonald’s in recent years. A promotion involving a purple shake for Grimace’s birthday generated massive social media attention and with it strong sales, as did Adult Happy Meals that same year. 

The company is clearly hoping for a repeat with Uncle O’Grimacey. The company is selling merchandise, including T-shirts and hats, which will also generate donations to RMHC. 

As for the character itself, Uncle O’Grimacey has been updated. The original wore a cob hat and a vest dotted with shamrocks, according to McDonald’s Wiki. He also carried a shillelagh, which is an Irish walking stick or cudgel. Alas, the only weaponry the new version carries is a Shamrock Shake. 

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Restaurant Business Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Maze is a longtime industry journalist who writes about restaurant finance, mergers and acquisitions and the economy, with a particular focus on quick-service restaurants.

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