McDonald's Just Made a Big Announcement, and It's Pure Emotional Intelligence

Here's an example. The latest new McDonald's promotion is the Collector's Meal, which sounds an awful lot like an Adult Happy Meal, and which comes with collectible cups inspired by previous McDonald's promotions that McDonald's customers might remember from their childhoods.

If you look at the very first lines of the McDonald's announcement of this new promotion, they waste no time in zeroing right in on the emotional reactions they're trying to sprak with this marketing strategy:

Instead, it's all about childhood memories, nostalgia, and emotional intelligence: the learned ability to leverage emotions, both yours and other people's, to make it more likely that you will achieve your goals.

Starting next week, you can get a Collector's Meal during breakfast hours (Sausage McMuffin with Egg sandwich, hash browns, and hot coffee), or during the rest of the day by choosing from a 10-piece Chicken McNuggets or a Big Mac sandwich along with fries and a drink.

The collector cup themes include Barbie & Hot Wheels; Beanie Babies; Coca-Cola; Hello Kitty & Peanuts; Shrek, Jurassic Park & Minions; and McDonald's characters like "the Grimace Glass, Boo Buckets, [and] Funny Fry Friends."

Maybe some of those characters resonate with you, and maybe some don't, but McDonald's is doing a heck of a job here at covering decades of its own marketing history, and thus making a broad effort to "unlock core memories" for a pretty wide swath of potential customers.

But don't forget the power of emotional intelligence and nostalgia in marketing. You might just help help your customers "unlock core memories," and make it more likely you'll achieve your business goals in the process.