The fast-food category has been growing over the past six years, with much of this growth coming from Hispanics. The majority visit a fast-food restaurant at least once a month and these numbers are only growing.

In 2020, McDonald’s was in a worrisome place. Not only had a global pandemic hit, but the brand’s U.S. business uncovered new data proving that declines were tightly linked to Hispanics, with the biggest losses among those under 24.

Research had shown that they loved the food. What they didn’t love was the brand.

The challenge was to get young Hispanics to talk about McDonald’s in a new light, ultimately driving them to the restaurant.

In 2020, despite young Hispanics facing one of the biggest obstacles in their lifetime — a global pandemic in which their school, work and family lives had been uprooted— they kept leaning on the optimism of their culture. Knowing that there is no stronger source of pride for Hispanics than their optimism, McDonald’s enlisted global Reggaeton sensation, J Balvin, to help establish the brand as one that honors Latinos. He was briefed to write an original track that would celebrate Latino optimism.

The idea was inspired by the generations of Hispanics who bring their optimism through the doors of McDonald’s restaurants across the country. From young athletes passing through, alongside the older gentleman sipping his McCafé, to crew members, Latinos are part of McDonald’s history.

The lyrics of Dorado were crafted by J Balvin to deeply connect with the cultural pride of young Hispanics. The song echoes "donde hay Latino, hay fiesta” (where there is a Latino, there is a party), celebrating the positivity that follows every Latino. The proud lyrics continue with “gracias mamá por hacerme Latino" (thank you mom for making me Latino). In essence, it is a love letter from McDonald’s to young Latinos.

We leveraged J Balvin’s album, Colores, as the context in which to launch the music video. Each of the album’s songs were titled with a color of the rainbow, but they did not include the color most associated with optimism and with McDonald’s: “Gold.” It was meant to be—Dorado (Golden) was born.

We started by teasing the J Balvin x McDonald’s collaboration on Twitter. While the world tried to figure out what was coming, we made sure his biggest fans had the inside scoop. When it was finally time for its world premiere, we debuted Dorado during the Latin Grammys, a night when all eyes were on J Balvin. We turned everyone’s attention to the McDonald’s app, the only place to see the video.

Linear TV and pre-show support from Univision amplified the idea, while news outlets across the country picked up the story. After the initial launch of the video on the app, we released the video on McDonald’s and J Balvin’s YouTube channels to expand our reach. The content continued with J Balvin dropping a video about the meaning behind the lyrics, amplifying the conversation and fanning interest.