This episode was written and produced by Fran Board.

Since its introduction in 2003, the McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle has become one of the most recognizable melodies in the world. This is the story of how a catchy five-note jingle conquered the planet, from its humble beginnings at a German ad agency, to being sung by globally famous pop stars. Featuring interviews with "I'm Lovin' It" composers Tom Batoy and Franco Tortora of Mona Davis Beat.

MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Norwich by Steven Gutheinz
Yeah Yeah Yeah (Instrumental) by Goldenface
Noir by Red Licorice 
A Classical Noir by Mary Riddle
Just the Right Amount by Arthur Benson
Odd Behavior by Arthur Benson
Feeling Alright (Instrumental) by Gavin Luke
Jokers by Mary Riddle
Soft and Way Up by Plum King
Mr. Mole and Son by Love and Weasel
For We Shall Know Speed by Truck Stop
Funky Nights by OTE

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View Transcript ▶︎

[SFX: McDonald’s audio logo montage]

By this point, the McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle has to be one of the most recognizable melodies in the world. How many times do you think you’ve heard it? Hundreds? Thousands?

You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

[music in]

For nearly twenty years, the I’m Lovin’ It melody has been used in almost every McDonald’s commercial, but getting to those five notes took a long time. McDonald’s has always understood the power of a good jingle, and over the years, they’ve had tons of them. Early on, these often involved their mascot, Ronald McDonald. This is from their very first TV commercial, back in 1963.

[SFX Clip: He’s Ronald McDonald...]

Here’s a nice groovy version from 1970.

[SFX Clip: Ronald’s gonna take you on a trip to McDonalds land]

By the mid 80s, it was a good time for a great taste.

[SFX Clip: It’s a good time...]

...and as McDonald’s expanded into other countries, they made unique jingles for those places. In the United Kingdom, McDonald’s made your day

[SFX Clip: A visit to McDonald’s makes your day]

In Germany, they were simply good.

[SFX Clip: McDonald’s ist enfach gut]

In Brazil, it was a delicious moment.

[SFX Clip: Esse e o momento...]

At one point, they awarded free food to anyone who could recite their Big Mac slogan in under four seconds.

[SFX Clip: If you can say...]

In the late 80s, they took things a step further with the Million Dollar Menu Song, which set the entire menu to music.

[Music clip: McDonald’s Million Dollar Menu Song]

In an epic promotion along the lines of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, McDonald’s printed over 80 million copies of this song on lightweight vinyl records, and attached them to newspapers and magazines.

[Music clip: McDonald’s Million Dollar Menu Song continues]

On the one winning copy, the singers successfully made it through the entire menu.

But on all the losing copies, the singers would make a mistake at some point in the song:

[Music clip: McDonald’s Million Dollar Menu Song continues, “Oh, we’re so sorry…”]

These over-the-top promotions and catchy jingles helped McDonald’s spread across the globe through the 80s and 90s. But by the early 2000s, the company was in trouble. Their stock price was at a seven-year low, and for the first time in their history, they were losing money.

At the time, public opinion about fast food was changing. Waistlines were expanding and healthier diets were getting more popular. By that point, some people had started to see Ronald McDonald not as a sweet clown, but as a symbol of childhood obesity.

[SFX Clip: Old McDonald’s commercial with Ronald McDonald]

Other people thought that he was just plain creepy.

[SFX Clip: Creepier Ronald McDonald]

McDonald’s decided it was time to throw out the book and do something totally different.

[music in]

So, in the early 2000s, McDonald’s launched an idea competition. Fourteen different ad agencies from around the world were asked to pitch a game-changing idea that could rejuvenate McDonald’s. For the first time ever, McDonald’s would use the single winning idea all over the world. They needed something special that would connect with people in every culture, and every language.

In Germany, an ad agency called Heye & Partner came up with the slogan, “Ich Liebe Es” which roughly translates to, “I’m Loving It”.

[music out]

The slogan was catchy, but the winning idea was supposed to include music. In order to bring this slogan to life, the agency reached out to a music production company called Mona Davis.

[music in]

Tom: My name is Tom Batoy.

Franco: And my name is Franco Tortora, and we founded Mona Davis almost around 30 years ago.

This wasn’t Tom and Franco’s first encounter with McDonald’s. A few years earlier, they’d been involved in a different McDonald’s pitch. Buuut it was rejected.

Tom: We were so close. I mean, we were so close, but we lost it.

Franco: And at that point we said, “My God, next time we're going to win it.”

So Tom and Franco set out to do what they do best: making music that connects with people.

Tom: First of all, in my opinion, you don't think about it too much. The more you think you can calculate what moves people, the more you're losing the emotion.

A few years earlier, they learned this lesson the hard way.

Franco: We had to develop an audio logo for Siemens and they wanted to use the Fibonacci number.

Franco: We had to do mathematical music, and in the end, it didn't really work out because it was like too constructed. There was no soul in it.

With McDonald’s, they knew they needed something with soul.

Franco: In the end, we said, “Okay, it has to be something really emotional.

Tom: Something which moves people, or which touches people.

[music out]

Tom and Franco got to work. Putting the words “McDonald’s” and “I'm Lovin' It” to music came pretty easily, but they knew something was missing. They needed a hook. Then one night, inspiration struck.

[music in]

Franco: You have to know that it was 2:30, 3:00 a.m. in the morning. So we were really, really tired. We already had a lot of white wine in us.

Franco: We tried hummings and different kinds of singing and singalongs. And then I think it was one of the creative directors who said, "Try something with ba-la-la-la-la or whatever."

Franco: And we started to do that, and then somehow this melody came out [SFX: ba-da-ba-ba-ba] and I said, “Well, that's pretty nice”. And that was the point where we stopped the session, because nobody could listen to anything anymore.

The next morning they listened back, starting with the last recording of the night [SFX]. As soon as they heard it, they knew they’d found a winner.

Franco: It was pretty clear because we heard that and said, "Wow... that's good." And the other ones were not competitive to that.

Tom: It wasn't big science. It was basically more that you hear and you develop something, and then emotionally get grabbed. Always, with a lot of things we do, we get emotionally grabbed by something, and then we say, “Oh! That's the thing!”

Franco: So that's how it came to the ba-da-ba-ba-ba… yeah.

[music out]

Tom and Franco believed they had found the winning melody, but they had to convince McDonald’s, too. Part of the challenge was to show that this short, simple melody could work in every country and every possible musical style.

Tom: They were testing us, of course, and they were like, “Okay, well if there's Olympic games, or if there's a country song, or if there's whatever it is, can we use that and implement it in all our musical work we do worldwide?” That's what you had to prove.

Thankfully, the melody just worked.

Tom: With this melody, you can do actually everything, and you can like transform it in a lot of different musical styles.

Tom: From Japanese singing [SFX]

Tom: to, like I said, Olympic games- [SFX]

Tom: to Mexican, [SFX] whatever...

Tom: We did it because we were so confident that it will work everywhere. I mean, they tested us really a lot, but we did it.

[music in]

Tom and Franco were at an advertising festival in France when they found out the big news: I’m Lovin’ It had won the idea competition. But instead of celebrating with the crowds around them, they hunkered down for days to hash out the deal.

Franco: It was the first week where Tom and I saw the sun only from inside of the hotels, not from the outside, because we had to develop long versions. We had to develop short versions. We had to develop costs. We had meetings like all the time. So we would just be sitting for a week in air conditioned rooms and developing the realization of this campaign worldwide.

It turned out, composing the music for I’m Lovin’ It was the easy part. Now, they’d have to bring this jingle to fourteen different countries.

Tom: They said, "Oh, well, can you really manage to produce all countries?” And so we were like, "Alright, here we go!"

What came next would be the most intense project of their careers: Seven months, thousands of mixes, billions of listeners, and even some controversy with a few famous singers. That’s all coming up, after the break.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[Music Clip: Put a smile on…]

McDonald’s has been using music to sell their brand since their very first TV commercial.

They’ve had some memorable songs... [Music Clip: Put a smile on…]

Aaand they’ve also had not-so-memorable songs. [Music Clip: Food, Folks and Fun...]

[music in]

These jingles helped McDonald’s become an international behemoth of fast food. But by 2002, business wasn’t great. Their stock was falling, and people were looking for healthier options. As Fortune magazine said that year, quote “That good feeling has been Hamburglared.".

To turn things around, McDonalds launched a massive campaign to find an idea they could use not just in the US, but all over the world. The winning idea combined the phrase “I’m Lovin’ It” with a catchy 5-note melody [SFX].

[music out]

Up to this point, McDonald’s had never done a fully global campaign before. Every country had their own marketing teams and agencies, and they were used to doing things their way. Tom and Franco had to get all of these teams on board with this new sound. And as you might imagine, it didn’t always go smoothly.

[music in]

Tom: We had these huge meetings and they had to tell them, “You have to stop all your work, because from now on, this will be the thing you have to incorporate in all your work. You have to use this no matter what."

Franco: We had to explain to the guys how to use the music.

Franco: So two musicians tell thousands of creative directors and client directors what they should do.

Tom: They didn't like us. They didn't like that.

Some of these countries were just getting their own campaigns off the ground.

Tom: It was really sad because there were countries, they produce the first TV spots and then somebody says, "No, get it to the trash."

Franco: And France also, they made a whole new campaign with a whole new music. They built up a national campaign and they had to break it. And they were really frustrated.

[music out]

Things only got more complicated from there. With this new campaign, McDonald’s wanted to do something completely different. Before they launched it as a jingle, they wanted I’m Lovin’ It to be a standalone hip-hop single. The idea was that people would develop a positive association with the song. Then, they’d be more receptive when they heard it in a commercial.

Back then, this kind of viral marketing was totally unheard of. To help them do it right, they turned to someone who knew the music industry inside and out.

Steve: The big break came for me when I was asked to work on McDonald’s I'm Lovin' It.

[music in]

That’s Steve Stoute. Steve was in charge of pulling off this Trojan horse marketing strategy: first the song, then the ads.

Through the 90s, Steve had been a successful record executive, working with people like Will Smith and Nas. He’d seen how culture and technology were changing advertising in a way that older agencies weren’t keeping up with. These clips came from a video podcast series out of Duke University, called Left of Black.

Steve: They came from a generation where you could push culture down. You could just force a message on you.

Back when there were only three TV stations to choose from, this “one size fits all” approach made more sense.

Steve: So because you’ve got three national networks, you think it’s hard to force a message on people? If you just buy all three networks, you got them.

But then cable TV came along, and then satellite, and then the internet. Over the course of a few decades, we went from three channels to almost endless options. Advertisers had to get more creative, and Steve wanted to be the one to help them do it.

Steve: I am going to be the guy who translates what’s taking place in culture and help you promote your brand to the consumer in a culturally authentic, connective way.

[music out]

Using his connections in the music industry, Steve started bringing rappers into the studio. The first person they considered was pretty well known.

Tom: And they brought a very famous rap star in. I can't tell you the name really. I mean, I would love to. But a very famous rap star.

This particular rap star had a bit of a… rebellious reputation.

Tom: It was some problems involved in drug using. I have to say it, I mean, for this rap star.

Eventually, McDonald’s decided to go with someone a little more squeaky clean: Justin Timberlake. At the time, Tom and Franco were pretty skeptical about that decision.

Tom: We always said, “Oh, he can't rap. He's a pop star. We don't think he can rap. I never heard him rapping."

Whether or not he could rap, there was no doubt that Justin Timberlake could bring some serious star power to the I’m Lovin’ It campaign. On the track, Justin was joined by Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of The Neptunes. Together, they got to work transforming this short audio logo into a 4 minute pop single.

[Music clip: I’m Lovin’ It single]

Months before the new ads were scheduled to release, the song mysteriously “leaked” online, and started getting picked up by radio stations. As intended, there was no mention of McDonald’s anywhere in the song. Instead, it featured fairly generic… umm… romantic lyrics, like this:

[Music clip: JT: Been working hard all week, Just trying to make your money, Girl go on and shake your booty, I'm lovin' it, I'm lovin' it, I’m lovin it…]

After the song had started to circulate, McDonald’s announced their partnership with Justin. Of course, most of his fans had no idea that the song they’d been hearing was conceived by McDonald’s. This Trojan horse strategy was already working. By this point, Tom and Franco were completely exhausted.

[music in]

Tom: It was seven months daily where you sleep about five hours. You have conference calls which take about 12 hours where you have a guy sitting beside you while you're sleeping, waking you up if the topic is interesting for you. It was crazy. You have to understand, it's not just one thing for the whole world, no, it's thousands of things for the world.

Tom: I mean, just the mixing amount, the final versions when it came out were 3,700 mixes.

You heard that right: three thousand seven hundred final mixes. After all that work, “I’m Lovin’ It” was ready for the world.

[music boosts]

In late 2003, McDonald’s launched the I’m Lovin’ It ad campaign. The ads included Justin Timberlake flirting on a rooftop, breakdancers, skateboarders, surfers, BMX bikers... and a few cheeseburgers.

All of the commercials used a version of the Justin Timberlake song, with additional rap verses that varied by country. In America, the raps were performed by Pusha T and his brother No Malice.

[Music clip: Debut commercial]

Here’s what it sounded like in Russia. [Music clip: I’m Lovin’ It Russia]

Here’s the Spanish version. [Music clip: I’m Lovin’ It Spanish]

And here’s the Bulgarian version. [Music clip: I’m Lovin It Bulgaria]

Finally, right after the ad campaign, the “I’m Lovin’ It” single was officially released. It reached the top 20 in many European countries, and was a number one hit in Belgium. In the US, it made it into the Top 100. Soon after, Justin embarked on a sponsored tour of the US and Europe called “McDonald's Presents: Justin Timberlake Lovin' It Live.”

[music in]

After the campaign had launched, Tom and Franco could finally take a break. At that point, they were pretty sick of hearing that melody.

Franco: I slept for a week. I think I was off for a couple of weeks because I couldn't hear the melody anymore. I couldn't hear the word McDonald's anymore. So it was pretty hard.

Tom: I didn't speak for two weeks. I didn't speak, and I speak a lot.

Tom: If you are surrounded with melody for such a long time and with such intensity, you just want to get rid of that melody. Because it dominates your brain, and whenever you hear something like that, it's, “Oh my God, no.”

[SFX: Nightmarish repetition of the melody]

Tom: It takes some time to recover.

Franco: That’s true.

Franco: It took me like two months or three months until I really was back in track and I could be proud of it.

[music out]

But all of that work paid off big time for McDonald’s. The I’m Lovin It campaign was originally scheduled to run for just two years. Now, almost two decades later, it’s still going strong. Since it launched, McDonald’s has gone all-in on this campaign, to the point where they’re paying superstars to record it.

There was this version by Destiny’s Child. [Music clip: Destiny’s Child audio logo]

They’ve done one about the Travis Scott meal [Music clip: The Travis Scott meal…]

And they’ve done the J. Balvin meal. [Music clip: Get it on the McDonald’s app…]

They’ve even licensed animated characters like Donkey from Shrek, [SFX clip] and the Minions. [SFX clip: Minions audio logo]

Over the years, this audio logo has also had its fair share of controversy. In an interview with Hot 97 radio station, Steve Stoute credited Pusha T with creating I’m Lovin’ It.

[music in]

Steve: You know who did that? Pusha T. That’s crazy that Pusha T wrote the song for McDonald’s.

While Pusha T did have a verse on one of the first commercials, his representative claimed that he wrote the entire song. Soon enough, that story started spreading through the media.

Tom: When I heard that, I was like, “What?” because Pusha T was basically a background singer in this crowd of Pharrell.

Tom: It got public very fast and especially in the net, but it's proven that we did it.

Nowadays, Pusha T refuses to comment on the McDonald’s jingle. He’s, quote, “eager to move on to new subjects.” For Tom and Franco, this sort of thing was nothing new.

Franco: He was just another one who claimed to be the composer.

Tom: I mean, we had court cases because people were accusing us that we stole the melody, And we won, of course, every one. But people think they can make a lot of money.

[music out]

Despite a reported six million dollar payment for his involvement, Justin Timberlake says he now regrets the deal. In an interview with GQ, Justin said that McDonald’s stock quote “went up by 25 per cent when I walked into those offices and changed their image.”

[music in]

For McDonald’s, I’m Lovin’ It has been a huge commercial success. It’s one of the biggest, most successful marketing campaigns of all time—it’s up there with Nike’s “Just Do It” and Apple’s “Think Different.” McDonalds’ Chief Marketing Officer went as far as calling I’m Lovin’ It “a multi-billion dollar asset.”

These days, you don’t actually hear the words “I’m Lovin It” in McDonald’s commercials as much as you used to. Most of the time, you just hear those five iconic notes. The melody really does work in every musical style and context. For something that seems so simple, it’s brilliant.

Tom: It's not just playing songs, it's not just playing music, it's that people get touched. It’s an international language.

Franco: Music is about time, and place, and moods. And so, a lot of things come together to make music magic. And you never can really say when the moment is.

[music out]

[music in]

Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by me, Dallas Taylor, and produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. For some sonic inspiration, follow Defacto Sound on Instagram, or visit defactosound.com.

This episode was written and produced by Fran Board. And me, Dallas Taylor. With help from Sam Schneble. It was story edited by Casey Emmerling. It was edited and sound designed by Soren Begin and Colin DeVarney.

Thanks to our guests, Tom Batoy and Franco Tortora, from the Mona Davis music production company. You can learn more about their work at Mona Davis dot com.

What jingle do you think Twenty Thousand Hertz should cover next? You can tell us on facebook, twitter, on our subreddit, or by writing hi at 20k dot org.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]