In McDonald's branding history, the 1996 burger created to appeal to adults with a more upscale image was the Arch Deluxe.
McDonald's introduced the Arch Deluxe in 1996 as a premium-positioned hamburger. Its advertising emphasized adult taste and presented the product as more sophisticated than the chain's traditional child- and family-oriented image. The campaign was one of McDonald's most expensive product launches at the time.
The burger used a potato-based bun and was promoted with the phrase “the burger with the grown-up taste.” Despite substantial advertising, sales did not meet expectations, and the product was discontinued in many markets. Its failure became a frequently cited example of the difficulty of changing a well-established brand's identity.
The Arch Deluxe is distinct from the later Big N' Tasty, which was another McDonald's burger but did not carry the same premium, adult-focused branding strategy.