Three decades ago, Norm Cox revolutionized the internet with the "Hamburger Menu." Fast forward to 2018, McDonald’s honored him on his birthday by transforming the iconic icon into a tasty McDonald’s burger for a day. Fans could order a burger through this special menu on Reddit and McDonald’s mobile apps, celebrating the genius behind its creation.

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This was my first project when starting to work with the We Are Unlimited (“Unltd”) team in 2018. I was asked quite simply, “Can we order a burger from anywhere on the Internet?”. To which I responded, “yes”, of course. This was my first "Skunkworks Idea"

Skunkworks Thinking

From the get-go, we aimed to create a stunt that pushed the boundaries of transparency. Working with the Untld team, we delved into experimenting with programmatically inserting our banner into mobile website drop-down menus. The challenge? Current web security practices make website spoofing tough. So, we took a cue from hackers, creating a cached version of sites like ESPN, altering their content, and then displaying them to users under a different URL. Think of it like phishing scams (man-in-the-middle), but without the malicious intent. While our legal team had reservations, we had a solid proof-of-concept before they raised their concerns. Our initial idea hit legal roadblocks due to inserting McDonald’s ads into websites. It seemed almost impossible until we teamed up with Reddit. The concept evolved from ordering a hamburger anywhere online to ordering it specifically through Reddit’s hamburger menu. Reddit was fantastic, even dressing up their mascot Snoo as the “Hamburglar.” Initially set for National Cheeseburger Day in September, the launch was delayed. To add some geeky fun, we hid an ASCII art graphic in the source code, allowing users to download the new hamburger menu icon for themselves.

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