McDonaldland was the fictional world introduced by McDonald’s for its character mascots.
The company developed McDonaldland advertising in the early 1970s as a colorful setting for Ronald McDonald and other characters. The campaign presented the restaurant brand through a fantasy landscape aimed primarily at children, using locations, props, and characters that could appear in commercials, packaging, and in-store promotions.
Characters associated with McDonaldland included Mayor McCheese, Grimace, the Hamburglar, and Birdie the Early Bird. The campaign is sometimes confused with the name of the restaurant chain itself, but McDonaldland referred to the fictional setting rather than a menu or corporate division. Its visual world became one of the most distinctive phases of McDonald’s historical branding.