McDonald's Poland and DDB Warsaw built a life-sized 14-metre snow globe with a pop-up restaurant inside for the Get Into The Snow Globe experiential campaign
ARCHIVEMcDonald's Get Into The Snow Globe Brought Winter Magic to Poland
McDonald's Get Into The Snow Globe is a December 2018 experiential campaign created by DDB Warsaw for McDonald's Poland, centred on a life-sized snow globe standing approximately 14 metres high and enclosing around 2,700 cubic metres of air, with a fully operational McDonald's pop-up restaurant positioned at its heart.
The campaign arrived in Poland at a moment when the reliable white Christmases of cultural memory had become increasingly rare in practice. Rather than simply advertising seasonal menu items, McDonald's Poland chose to manufacture the experience of a perfect winter entirely from scratch. Visitors could physically enter the structure, placing themselves inside the kind of festive tableau that typically exists only in miniature on a mantelpiece. The pop-up McDonald's store inside ensured the experience was not merely spectacle but also a functional brand touchpoint, inviting guests to eat, gather, and linger within the installation itself.
In Poland, where the Christmas period carries deep cultural weight and family togetherness sits at the centre of the season's meaning, the campaign spoke directly to a shared emotional vocabulary. The installation's scale — 14 metres in height, as documented by goldendrum.com — gave it genuine architectural presence in its public setting, making it an organic destination rather than a passive advertisement. The campaign was submitted to and featured in the Golden Drum showcase in 2019, as noted on goldendrum.com, though its specific award level has not been publicly verified. Clapboard.com records the campaign as an experiential medium work within the Food industry category, published in December 2018. The Clapboard Score for Get Into The Snow Globe stands at 59 out of 100.
McDonald's Poland structured the Get Into The Snow Globe campaign around a specific cultural tension: the gap between the idealised Polish winter and the meteorological reality facing the country in recent years. According to goldendrum.com, the installation's stated strategic purpose was to recreate the nostalgia of perfect winters and offer an immersive seasonal experience during a period when natural snowfall had become unreliable. DDB Warsaw translated that insight into physical form rather than film or print, choosing experiential as the medium precisely because nostalgia is most persuasive when it is felt rather than watched.
The competitive context in Poland's quick-service restaurant sector reinforces why differentiation at Christmas matters for McDonald's. Globally, McDonald's held an estimated 21.4% of the fast-food restaurant market in 2018, according to T4, a position that far exceeded its nearest rivals. Burger King, one of McDonald's most direct burger-category competitors in brand positioning terms, held just 1.16% of global market share in 2018, also per t4.ai. In a market where McDonald's scale is so dominant, the strategic risk during high-emotion seasons is complacency. The snow globe activation countered that risk by giving the brand a reason for consumers in Poland to seek out a McDonald's location actively, rather than choosing it by default.
DDB Warsaw's relationship with McDonald's Poland was well-established by the time this campaign launched. According to linkedin.com, the agency's documented work for the brand extended back to at least 2014. That continuity of partnership meant the creative team could pursue an ambitious and logistically complex idea with confidence, knowing the client relationship could support the production demands that a 14-metre public installation requires. The campaign fits within a lineage of DDB Warsaw Christmas work for McDonald's, including a separate holiday campaign titled Coming Home, as noted by 1xmarketing.com.
The creative execution of Get Into The Snow Globe rested on a single, uncompromising idea executed at genuine scale. The installation stood approximately 14 metres high and contained around 2,700 cubic metres of air, as documented on both goldendrum.com and adsoftheworld.com. A McDonald's pop-up restaurant occupied the centre of the structure, meaning the interior was fully dressed as a functional dining environment rather than an empty theatrical shell. The VFX and production elements that brought the snow globe aesthetic to life — simulated snow, enclosed transparent walls, seasonal lighting — transformed what was architecturally an events structure into something that read, visually and emotionally, as an oversized Christmas ornament brought into the real world.
The creative leadership at DDB Warsaw was provided by executive creative directors Zuzanna Duchniewska-Sobczak and Maciej Waligóra, as credited on goldendrum.com and adsoftheworld.com. The copywriting was handled by Jan Mirosław and the art direction by Izabela Wit, with both credited as senior creatives on the project, per adsoftheworld.com. Strategic planning was led by Małgorzata Majcher and Anna Łyszczek-Majewska, as noted on goldendrum.com, and account management was handled by Agata Pietruch, per adsoftheworld.com. The breadth of the credited team reflects the logistical complexity of an activation that required simultaneous coordination of creative concept, physical construction, food service operations, and public event management within a single unified installation in Poland.
The choice of experiential as the campaign's primary medium was itself a creative statement. In a December advertising landscape dominated by television and digital film, erecting a 14-metre walk-in snow globe gave McDonald's Poland a physical media presence that no competitor could replicate simply by increasing a broadcast budget. The VFX sensibility typically applied to screen-based work was here translated into three-dimensional, real-world space, giving visitors an encounter with the brand that existed entirely outside the conventions of conventional Food and Drink advertising.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for Get Into The Snow Globe is publicly available in terms of footfall figures, sales uplift, earned media reach, or consumer sentiment metrics. McDonald's Poland and DDB Warsaw have not released quantified campaign results through any publicly accessible channel reviewed by Clapboard.
Structural analysis of the campaign's effectiveness, however, points to several indicators of strategic soundness. The installation's listing on goldendrum.com for the 2019 Golden Drum showcase places it within a Central and Eastern European awards context where experiential work is evaluated on ambition, cultural relevance, and craft quality — criteria this activation addresses directly through its scale, its connection to a genuine Polish cultural insight about winter nostalgia, and the integration of a working McDonald's store within the spectacle. Golden Drum is among the most regionally significant advertising recognition programmes for markets including Poland, as noted on goldendrum.com.
The campaign's single media asset, as recorded by clapboard.com, suggests the activation was designed to generate organic documentation and sharing rather than relying on a produced film as its primary vehicle. That model of experiential seeding — where the installation itself is the creative output and visitor-generated content becomes the distribution mechanism — is structurally consistent with how major Food and Drink brands sought earned attention in public activations during 2018 and 2019. The Clapboard Score of 59 out of 100 reflects a campaign with a strong conceptual foundation and credible craft credentials that is nonetheless limited in its publicly documented reach and measurable industry recognition.
Get Into The Snow Globe was a December 2018 experiential campaign by McDonald's Poland, created by DDB Warsaw. It centred on a life-sized snow globe standing approximately 14 metres high, enclosing around 2,700 cubic metres of air, with a fully operational McDonald's pop-up restaurant installed inside the structure, as documented by goldendrum.com and adsoftheworld.com.
DDB Warsaw created Get Into The Snow Globe for McDonald's Poland. DDB Warsaw is part of the DDB Worldwide network. Executive creative directors Zuzanna Duchniewska-Sobczak and Maciej Waligóra led the project, with Jan Mirosław as copywriter and Izabela Wit as art director, as credited on goldendrum.com and adsoftheworld.com.
McDonald's Poland built the snow globe to recreate the nostalgia of perfect winters during a period when reliable natural snowfall in Poland had become uncertain. According to goldendrum.com, the strategic purpose was to offer an immersive seasonal experience that physically delivered what the climate could no longer guarantee, connecting the brand to deep cultural feelings around family and Christmas togetherness.
Get Into The Snow Globe received a Golden Drum showcase listing in 2019, as recorded on goldendrum.com. Golden Drum is a significant regional advertising recognition programme covering markets including Poland. The specific award level — whether winner, finalist, or shortlist — has not been publicly verified through available documentation reviewed for this analysis.
The Clapboard Score for Get Into The Snow Globe is 59 out of 100. This reflects a campaign with a strong conceptual foundation, credible craft credentials, and a meaningful cultural insight specific to Poland, balanced against limited publicly documented performance data and a single recorded media asset, per clapboard.com.
DDB Warsaw's relationship with McDonald's Poland extended back to at least 2014, according to linkedin.com. The snow globe activation fits within a lineage of seasonal and brand campaigns including the separate Christmas work titled Coming Home, as noted by 1xmarketing.com, demonstrating a sustained creative partnership built around culturally resonant storytelling for the Polish market.
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