Krool Toys is an American indie game studio founded by Tia Chinai and Stefan Cohen. [1] [2] Some of their clients include McDonald's, [3] [4] Warner Music Group, [5] [6] and SubwayCreatures. [7]
Krool Toys was founded in 2020 by Stefan Cohen and Tia Chinai. Originally concentrating on music marketing campaigns by creating custom video games, toys and other collectables for musicians, they have expanded to working with multinational fast food retailers, fashion brands, as well as releasing their own collection of branded merchandise. [8] [9] [2]
Following collaborations with Cactus Plant Flea Market, [10] Travis Scott, [11] BTS, [12] and others, on June 12, 2023, McDonald's announced its latest campaign, the Grimace Shake, in celebration of Grimace's Birthday. [4] McDonald's worked with Krool Toys to develop Grimace's Birthday , a platformer inspired by early 2000s-style browser games. [13]
Tariq Hassan, chief marketing and customer experience officer at McDonald's, [14] stated that "Grimace is the perfect lovable icon to have McDonald's meet our fans at the intersection of nostalgia and culture." [4]
In Grimace's Birthday, the player controls Grimace as they skate through playplace tunnels, grind on handrails, balance on telephone wires, and float over the New York City skyline to find his pals Hamburglar, Birdie the Early Bird, and the McNugget Buddies.
Its popularity led to people figuring out a way to put the game on physical hardware, making their own label and box art, sharing it with their friends and online communities, starting new Discord communities just surrounding the game, and porting the game to other consoles like the Nintendo DS, Steam Deck and PSP. [15] [16] [17] [18]
McDonaldland is a McDonald's media franchise and the fictional fantasy world inhabited by Ronald McDonald and his friends. Starting with the creation of Ronald McDonald in 1963, it is primarily developed and published by McDonald's. Initial attempts to expand the McDonaldland universe by marketing agency Needham, Harper & Steers were seemingly retconned due to legal issues, but ongoing aspects were expanded in McDonald's projects in collaboration with Data East, Virgin Interactive, Treasure, SEGA, and Klasky Csupo.
A gimmick is a novel device or idea designed primarily to attract attention or increase appeal, often with little intrinsic value. When applied to retail marketing, it is a unique or quirky feature designed to make a product or service "stand out" from its competitors. Product gimmicks are sometimes considered mere novelties, and tangential to the product's functioning. Gimmicks are occasionally viewed negatively, but some seemingly trivial gimmicks of the past have evolved into useful, permanent features. In video games, the term is also sometimes used to describe unusual features or playstyles, especially if they are unnecessary or obnoxious.
Play-Doh is a modeling compound for young children to make arts and crafts projects. The product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s. Play-Doh was then reworked and marketed to Cincinnati schools in the mid-1950s. Play-Doh was demonstrated at an educational convention in 1956 and prominent department stores opened retail accounts.
Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way that a virus spreads from one person to another. It can be delivered by word of mouth, or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile networks.
A Happy Meal is a kids' meal usually sold at the American fast food restaurant chain McDonald's since June 1979. A small toy or book is included with the food, both of which are usually contained in a red cardboard box with a yellow smiley face and the McDonald's logo. The packaging and toy are frequently part of a marketing tie-in to an existing television series, film or toyline.
This is a list of appearances made by Donald Duck in Disney features and cartoons.
The Shamrock Shake is a seasonal green mint flavored milkshake dessert sold at some McDonald's restaurants during March to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in the US, Canada and Ireland.
The Game Boy is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America and Europe later that year. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-game handhelds, Nintendo developed the Game Boy to be more like a portable console, with interchangeable cartridges. The concept proved highly successful and the Game Boy became a cultural icon of the 1990s and early 2000s.
The American restaurant chain McDonald's has been criticised for numerous aspects of its business, including the health effects of its products, its treatment of employees, the environmental impact of its operations, and other business practices.
Diva Starz was a series of talking fashion dolls created and released by Mattel in October 2000. They are similar in design to MGA's Bratz and Tiger Electronics' Furby. Alexa, Nikki, Summer—later replaced by Miranda—and Tia were offered in the original debut. Originally produced as robotic dolls, Mattel would also release miniature and fashion doll versions in response to their initial success. The line was discontinued in 2004.
The Teenie Beanies are miniature Beanie Babies that were offered as McDonald's promotions in Happy Meals from 1997 to 2000.
Ronald McDonald is a clown character used as the primary mascot of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. He inhabits the fictional world of McDonaldland, with his friends Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird and The Fry Kids.
Jacques Bermon Webster II, known professionally as Travis Scott, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Scott has had four number-one hits on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, along with a total of over one hundred charting songs. In addition to ten Grammy Award nominations, he has won a Latin Grammy Award, Billboard Music Award, MTV Video Music Award, and several BET Hip Hop Awards. Scott's musical style has been described as a "blend between traditional hip-hop and lo-fi" and often characterized as "ambient," with a heavily appraised influence from rappers Kanye West and Kid Cudi. His stage name is derived from the latter's real name, Scott Mescudi, combined with the name of a favorite uncle.
France Cartes Cartamundi is a manufacturer of playing cards and games that is based in France at Saint-Max. The company introduced the Ducale brand of playing cards in 1946 and became the largest playing card manufacturer in France in 1962 after acquiring their competitor, Grimaud. Other brands marketed by France Cartes include Shuffle, Carta Magic, Grimaud Cartomancie, and Éditions Dusserre. France Cartes was acquired by Cartamundi in 2014.
South Korean boy band BTS was formed in 2010 and debuted in 2013. The septet has had a significant cultural impact both in Korea and internationally, and is considered one of the leading figures of the Hallyu wave in the 21st century. The commercial influence of BTS upon the Korean economy, along with their philanthropic and other commercial ventures, has received extensive attention in the press and in financial markets.
Cactus Plant Flea Market is an American design and fashion brand, known for depictions of faces with four eyes. Established by designer Cynthia Lu in 2015, it has collaborated with Nike, Kid Cudi, and created toys for an adult-version of the McDonald's Happy Meal in 2022. Cynthia Lu started the brand inside of her apartment in Brooklyn, NY. Lu began thinking about the brand in 2012, when she began a job with the P.R office of the apparel company "Billionaire Girls Club", which is owned by Pharrell Williams. The name of the brand could be a nod towards her nickname, which is Cactus or Plant.
The Grimace Shake was a berry-flavored milkshake that was first sold at McDonald's restaurants in the United States from June 11 to July 11, 2023, to celebrate the 52nd birthday of Grimace, the purple, milkshake-loving character from McDonaldland. The shake was then introduced in Canada the following year, starting on May 14, 2024. A third limited run took place in the United Kingdom for one week starting on August 28, 2024, celebrating McDonald's 50th anniversary in the country.
Grimace's Birthday is a 2023 browser-based platformer game developed by Krool Toys and published by McDonald's. The game was a promotional title released to coincide with the launch of the Grimace Shake on 12 June 2023. Development of Grimace's Birthday used GB Studio, a tool to create games compatible with use on Game Boy hardware, although the game was not a Nintendo-licensed title and did not receive a physical release. Grimace's Birthday was positively received, with several critics directing attention to the unexpected theme and medium for a promotional game and the strong likeness of the game's visual presentation to Game Boy titles.