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This is an article found in my backlog on Notion of post drafts that time forgot. I intended to post this as soon as I could, but having gotten inundated with other projects, it was left behind. But since it’s nearing the fourth anniversary since the talked about collaboration launch in the US, let’s talk about the global K-Pop powerhouse BTS and their international collab with fast-foot chain, McDonald’s.

On May 26th, 2021, McDonald’s in the US launched their BTS meal collaboration with the band named after the meal. About a month leading up to the launch of the meal promotion, a lot of people were curious about what came with the said meal. McDonald’s on their Twitter (now X) account revealed that there would be postcards, t-shirts, and other collectibles that will be available to purchase online and not come with the meal. But of course, we’re talking about BTS, so obtaining the items had to be just a rough as obtaining tickets to their next concert.

I was curious of what came with the meal and I looked all over to see what came with it. Considering that McDonald’s in the US had a similar promotion a few years earlier where they bought menu items from Canada, Spain, Australia, and the Netherlands, I was hoping that US McDonald’s would go above and beyond and offer other menu items. Although the meal were just the chicken nuggets—at the decision of the band, which was 10-piece with a large drink and fries, or medium if you choose it. The only difference is that it comes with exclusive two sauces: sweet chili and cajun.

The sauces weren’t bad, and between the two I really liked the sweet chili. But overall it was not a bad effort to give the Bangtan Boys some love. The biggest disappointment is that the packaging for US promotions was your basic McDonald’s branding for any other food item, save for the bag. In other countries, especially in BTS’s home country of South Korea, there are promotion exclusive designs for the food which are all white and purple—the latter being the official color of BTS and their fans, known as ARMY.

It’s been a few years since the collab concluded, but I hope with the rising popularity of Stray Kids, ATEEZ, KATSEYE, and NJZ (formerly NewJeans—provided they are freed from legal issues with their former label), we’ll see more K-Pop collabs at McDonald’s in the near future.

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