McDonald’s began using the McDonaldland characters in national advertising in 1971.
McDonaldland gave the company a shared fictional setting for characters such as Mayor McCheese, Grimace, and the Hamburglar. The setting turned restaurant advertising into a continuing story world aimed especially at children and families.
Some individual characters appeared around the same period or in earlier advertising, which is why dates are sometimes mixed together. The important branding milestone is the national use of McDonaldland in 1971, when the fictional world became a broad advertising framework rather than a single character appearance.
The characters also helped McDonald’s make its restaurants visually distinct from ordinary fast-food competitors. Their names, costumes, and recurring relationships created recognizable brand assets, even though the cast and the style of the advertising changed over later decades.