McDonald's has minted the MacCoin to celebrate the Big Mac's 50th anniversary and customers will be able to cash in on five different designs starting on Thursday.
Anyone walking into one of the 14,000 participating restaurants across the U.S. and purchasing a Big Mac will receive the special coin, USA Today reported, and they can redeem the new currency for a free Big Mac for the rest of the year – or keep the coin if they’re into kitschy souvenirs.
Why the Thursday kickoff?
That day would have been the 100th birthday of Jim Delligatti, the man who invented the Big Mac nearly 50 years ago, McDonalds CEO, Steve Easterbrook told USA Today.
Delligatti died in 2016 at 98 and his legacy continues to this day. McDonald's decided it would be fitting to honor him with the MacCoin, which is actually an idea based upon the Big Mac index.
McDonald's has been an influential global force over the years, and its burger prices have even become an indicator for the purchasing power of an economy. In 1986, when The Economist published a guide to whether currencies were at their "correct" level and it has been appearing annually ever since.
"They use it to this day,” Easterbrook told USA Today of the Big Mac Index and how it sparked the idea to create the MacCoin. "Why not have some fun with it? Create our own currency."
MacCoins will be available in five collectable designs representing five decades of the Big Mac, MCDonald's noted in a tweet.
The company is full of clever marketing ideas and this is just its latest initiative.
Earlier this year the franchise flipped its arches upside down for International Women's Day, turning its golden M to a W for a day in honor of women across the globe.
The sign outside a McDonald's restaurant in Lynwood, California, was actually flipped. In addition, about 100 chains in the U.S. were stocked with special packaging, shirts and hats for the day.
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