• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, November 12, 2024

Shortly before the summer of 2024, many long-suffering Mets fans may have felt the team had problems -- but a dearth of mascots wasn’t one of them.

In the mascots department, the Flushing, Queens-based team already boasted the attention-getting couple, Mr. and Mrs. Met, with their pinstripe-uniformed male- and female-shaped bodies and big, red-stitched baseball-heads.

Indeed, Mr. Met is 6’10, with an orb so large it could have its own gravitational pull.

Therefore, no one could have predicted that a cross-corporate deal involving a creepy, hamburger-branded character of unidentifiable species could enter the baseball field and almost magically transform the team’s fortunes.

But a certain purple one did.

I speak of what was later dubbed “The Grimace Effect.” 

In a deal cooked up by Wieden & Kennedy and Mets’ management (which had worked with McD’s before), Grimace, the poignant, purple McBlob with eyes, was brought by his handlers to Citi Field on June 12 to throw out the first pitch.

Given those abbreviated arms, the pitch was wobbly.

But the Mets played that day against the Miami Marlins and won 10-4. 

That was the start of an amazing seven-game winning streak that carried the team up through the National League Championship Series.

Rabid fans came to games in Grimace costumes, screaming his name. The effect multiplied, as Grimace became the team’s messiah.

“When we first started to see the momentum that the fans were getting behind it, we quickly realized, ‘Let the fans take this over. Let the fans do what they do,’” Andy Goldberg, Mets chief marketing officer, told The Athletic.

 “As someone on my team said, ‘Let the internet, internet,’ which I thought was a great way to put it. … It’s not ours. If we force it, it becomes really inauthentic,” Goldberg added.
“Our fans are extremely passionate. They were finding it, so we just kind of tipped our cap to, ‘Hey, if you know, you know,'” Will Carafello, senior director of the Mets’ social media campaigns, told NPR. “We don’t want to be one of those brands that goes too deep into it and then ruins it for everyone,” he added.

The life that the campaign took on was not something either of the brands could have predicted or constructed.

I recount the McDonald’s/Mets brand story now, for anyone worried that this new political atmosphere, with its deep cultural divides, might negatively affect advertising creativity.

Because it’s a great case study for a kind of campaign that rises up authentically, that activates and unites us, regardless of the politics of the moment. 

It makes me feel bullish about the future of creativity and the unexpected twists and turns ahead.

Plus, Grimace is now likely more beloved than Keith Hernandez by Mets fans everywhere. He may have tiny arms, but his effects on the Mets and culture were far-reaching.