Happy Frydays Café
Brand: McCain
Role: Experiential Marketing Lead + Integrated Campaign Strategy
Timeline: July – November 2024
Overview
Led the strategy and execution of McCain’s Happy Frydays Café, a large-scale experiential activation designed to launch the Jumbo Crinkle Cut product and reposition frozen french fries as the centerpiece of shared meals and meaningful moments. The activation brought McCain’s “Together is Golden” platform to life through immersive storytelling, organic social amplification, and community-driven engagement.
Strategy & Execution
Brand & Campaign Strategy: Partnered with McCain brand leadership to translate the “Together is Golden” platform into a culturally relevant, experience-led product launch. The strategy focused on elevating fries from a side dish to a shared, joy-filled moment at the center of the table.
Experiential Marketing: Concepted and delivered a custom-built French fry café pop-up in downtown Toronto, transforming a parking lot into a joyful, functional brand space that blended culinary creativity with approachability and scale.
Creative Direction: Oversaw development of a chef-curated menu showcasing the versatility of McCain’s Jumbo Crinkle Cut fries, alongside signage, menu copy, and environmental storytelling designed to reinforce togetherness and play.
Cross-Functional Leadership: Led collaboration across creative, production, PR, influencer, media, and brand teams to ensure alignment across every touchpoint, from physical experience to digital amplification.
Organic Social & Creator Strategy: Partnered with influencer and social teams to activate aligned creators and drive organic content capture, ensuring the experience extended beyond the pop-up through authentic, shareable storytelling.
Community & Media Integration: Supported media preview events, press outreach, and local community engagement to maximize reach and establish the activation as a cultural moment, not just a product launch.
Impact
Surpassed brand foot traffic and engagement expectations throughout the activation.
Generated strong organic social buzz and creator-led content across platforms.
Earned PR coverage positioning McCain as a playful, culturally relevant brand.
Reframed consumer perception of frozen fries as a central, shareable meal experience.
Established a benchmark experiential model for future McCain product launches.
📍 Press coverage included:
Why It Matters
The Happy Frydays Café showed how experiential marketing can turn a product launch into an emotional brand moment. By grounding creativity in strategy and storytelling, the activation delivered joy without gimmicks and scale without losing intimacy. It reinforced McCain’s role as a brand that understands how food brings people together and proved that with the right execution, even the simplest of salted products can create moments of truly meaningful connection.