This McDonald’s Video Campaign Undoes the Lazy Gen-Z Narrative. Here’s Why You Should Be Lovin’ It

The fast food company filmed a documentary style campaign to celebrate younger workers.

BY KIT EATON @KITEATON

Photo: Courtesy McDonald’s via Leo UK

One major narrative thread winding through the stories written about Gen-Z and the workplace is that they’re seen as lazy, uncommunicative and not at all keen to step up and deliver when businesses need extra effort. But a new video campaign by McDonald’s in the U.K. and Ireland tries to tell a different story. It celebrates Gen-Z workers, and showcases how they’re critical to keep McDonald’s operations running—all while showing that Gen-Z really can communicate, and work hard. 

The promotional campaign, ad news site LBBOnline noted, is filmed in a “documentary style,” by actual workers using handheld video cameras and a “fly-on-the-wall” production that may vaguely remind you of classic comedy The Office (though this campaign is pretty serious.) Each video begins with a voiceover from an authority figure—presumably older—dissing young workers. Then the young staff are shown at work, upending all the criticism. It’s a shtick, but the point is to highlight how Gen-Z workers gain confidence, communication and teamwork skills, hone their leadership expertise and build resilience, LBBOnline explained. 

But what’s the goal of the whole campaign? Running ads showing how good young staff are may seem a strange idea.

The answer is that McDonald’s is one of the biggest employers of younger people in the U.K.—it has more than 100,000 staff members under 25, with one in three of its managers from this age group. The whole point of the campaign, apart from attempting to upend some of the negative notions held about Gen-Z, is to show that the fast food chain sees young workers as valuable. 

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It’s a recruitment drive. But it’s an interesting one. LBBOnline quoted Ben Fox, the company’s chief marketing officer, who explained that there are “many unfair stereotypes about young people,” but McDonald’s is “really proud of the young people working in our restaurants,” and sees them as “fundamental to keeping them running successfully.”

In a time when Gen-Z is sometimes seen in a very negative light, this recruitment campaign stands out. In particular, it’s in sharp contrast to a new Gallup study that shows growing friction between Gen-Z workers and Boomer-age managers and senior staff. 

According to this poll, some 60 percent of the Gen-Z workers surveyed said they’d happily consider leaving a job that harms their work-life balance. This is the opposite opinion to Boomer-era staff, who champion the idea of sacrificing personal stuff to support a corporation’s goals. It’s quite clearly the “work-to-live” mentality from Gen-Z contrasting with the “live-to-work” mentality of Boomer workers. 

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