Restaurant company McDonald's Corp MCD has huge brand recognition globally thanks to the launch of new food items and marketing initiatives that include partnerships with celebrities and athletes, as well as television commercials.
The company could see one of its biggest marketing pushes ever if it decides to take a challenge issued by billionaire Elon Musk.
What Happened: Meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin DOGE/USD is surging again in early 2024, which came three years after the crypto enjoyed one of the most talked about years in cryptocurrency history.
In 2021, Dogecoin hit all-time highs and enjoyed catalysts that included tweets from Musk, Mark Cuban and companies such as Slim Jim using Doge in marketing materials.
Over the past three years, more retailers have begun accepting Dogecoin for payment for merchandise, including Tesla.
One retailer that has not launched mass acceptance of Dogecoin yet is McDonald's, one of the largest restaurant companies in the world.
Musk offered a challenge to McDonald's in January 2022 to help push the restaurant company to accept Dogecoin as a payment option. Musk said that he would eat a Happy Meal on television if McDonald's company accepted Dogecoin as a payment option.
The tweet from Musk came as speculation grew that McDonald's was planning to accept Dogecoin, which turned out to be untrue.
Musk confirmed again in 2023 that he was still open to the challenge if McDonald's did their part.
The Tesla CEO is the richest person in the world and the most followed person on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. An event of Musk eating a Happy Meal could be shown on television or livestreamed on X and could be one of the most talked about events in restaurant and cryptocurrency history of the past decade.
The Happy Meal was launched globally by McDonald's in 1979 and has been one of its biggest hits. The item is available as a meal option for kids with an entrée such as a burger or chicken nuggets, a kids’ french fries, apple slices, a beverage and a toy.
McDonald's taking things a step further and including some type of Tesla toy or a Tesla-related version of the adult Happy Meal could make the marketing event even larger.
Here's a look at how Dogecoin has performed since Musk first issued the challenge.
Related Link: How To Buy Dogecoin (DOGE)
Investing $100 in Dogecoin: An investor could have speculated on Dogecoin based on the tweet from Musk with the meme crypto likely heading higher if McDonald's and Musk followed through with accepting the cryptocurrency and Musk eating the Happy Meal.
A $100 investment at the time of Musk's tweet could have purchased 691.89 DOGE based on a price of $0.144532 at the time.
The $100 investment would be worth $120.94 today based on a price of $0.1748 for Dogecoin at the time of writing.
This represents a return of +20.9% over the last two years. While the gain is relatively small it comes with the potential of the event still actually happening, which could act as a catalyst.
The investment in Dogecoin also outperformed the restaurant stock over the same time period.
A $100 investment could have bought 0.3960 McDonald’s shares at the same time. The $100 investment would be worth $114.92 today, trailing the return of Dogecoin.
Read Next: 2021 Was The Year Of Dogecoin: A Month By Month Retrospective With Top Stories
Image created using artificial intelligence with MidJourney.
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