In China’s fast-food market, value is no longer self-explanatory. Low prices are ubiquitous, promotions are easily replicated, and consumer attention is fragmented across platforms and formats. Against this backdrop, the McDonald’s China Fan Convention (麦当劳中国粉丝大会) has become a stage for the brand to steadily rework how it communicates value. No longer is it a low price point, but a relationship built over time.
That ambition was on display at the company’s second fan convention, held in late 2025 in Shanghai. While branded as a gathering of fans, the event functioned more broadly as a strategic touchpoint: a moment to present product direction, cultural positioning, and listening credentials in a single, highly staged setting.
What the convention did, and what it was designed to signal
Held at Shanghai’s West Bund Dome Art Center, the convention brought together around 200 invited fan representatives from across China, alongside farming partners from McDonald’s supply chain. The official theme – ‘农情美味，麦超所值’ (lit: farm-inspired flavor, McValue beyond compare) – set the tone for what followed.
On stage, McDonald’s unveiled its 2026 product and program roadmap. This included a major upgrade to the long-running 1+1 value combination, expanded weekend promotions, new burger variants, the return of seasonal favourites, and the limited-time mainland debut of the maple-flavoured pancake breakfast sandwich. Membership initiatives tied to China’s 24 solar terms were also highlighted, reinforcing a year-round engagement strategy rather than campaign-led bursts.
Alongside these announcements were softer, symbolic elements: co-creation initiatives such as a pickle-sharing plan and fan-inspired merchandise, as well as appearances by agricultural partners and previews of farmer-artist packaging. Together, these elements reframed the event from a promotional launch into a narrative about listening, sourcing, and long-term commitment.
China’s McFans and McDonald’s China Fan Convention
The decision to frame the event as a ‘fan convention’ sits against a wider cultural backdrop. In recent years, McDonald’s has developed an unusually visible online fan base in China, often referred to as McFans (麦粉), with the term Maimen (麦门, internet slang for McDonald’s Faction, or perhaps, sect) emerging as online shorthand for playful, exaggerated brand devotion.
This phenomenon shows how young Chinese consumers use mainstream brands as social language – creating memes, in-jokes, and stylised expressions of belonging across platforms like Rednote and Weibo. Importantly, this behaviour blends irony and sincerity: the tone is humorous, but the attachment is real.
At the convention itself, however, this subculture was not foregrounded or explicitly referenced. Instead, it operates as context. The existence of an emotionally engaged fan base helps explain why McDonald’s can credibly host such an event – and why inviting fans into product conversations resonates – but the brand stops short of turning maimen into an official narrative. The fandom is acknowledged indirectly, through access and participation, rather than celebrated and pushed as an official identity.
The branding logic: turning listening into infrastructure
From a branding standpoint, the fan convention is less about fandom and more about infrastructure. It gives McDonald’s China a repeatable format to demonstrate that value is designed, maintained, and responsive – not accidental or purely price-driven.
By unveiling product changes in front of fans, the brand shows that its maimen are appreciated, that fandom goes somewhere concrete. Second, it anchors value to its core values and practises: supply chains, agriculture, seasonality, and membership mechanics, rather than one-off discounts. Third, it reinforces continuity. As a recurring event, the convention creates a rhythm through which McDonald’s can guide expectations and renew trust each year.
But crucially, fan participation remains curated. Co-creation is framed as inspiration, not control, allowing McDonald’s to harness engagement without handing over strategic command.
McDonald’s China Fan Convention: stabilty not spectacle
McDonald’s China’s fan convention is not an exercise in elevating fandom for its own sake. It is a disciplined attempt to give structure to value, listening, and localisation in a market where those concepts hold weight.
Framing the event as a fan convention has its uses, but the convention itself is about something more durable: reinforcing McDonald’s position as familiar, responsive, and culturally grounded. In that sense, the event is less about celebrating fans, and more about showing how a mass brand sustains relationships, even at huge scale.
