McDonald's is generating lots of buzz today after it used an iPhone 8 mockup in an ad promoting its mymacca's mobile ordering app in Australia.

mcdonalds australia ad iphone 8

McDonald's promotional email courtesy of MacRumors reader Amir T.

The ad, emailed to many customers on Thursday, clearly shows a rendered iPhone with a nearly full front display, beyond a notch for the front-facing camera, earpiece, and sensors for expected facial recognition functionality.

Needless to say, this isn't an official iPhone 8 image. Benjamin Geskin‏ tweeted that the render is his. McDonald's poorly cropped the image, and used circles for the signal strength indicator, which Apple switched to bars in iOS 11.

However, whether it was intentional, by mistake, or simply a McDonald's graphic designer being clever, the ad has proven to be an effective publicity stunt, as several users have shared it on social platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and the MacRumors forums.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the iPhone 8 will be available in September in extremely limited quantities.

Top Rated Comments

OldSchoolMacGuy Avatar
110 months ago
Smart marketing. Look at all the free press they're getting from Apple sites.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
D.T. Avatar
110 months ago
Is McDonalds even aloud to do that?
Yeah, usually they have to keep quiet about this sort of thing ...
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Joe Rossignol Avatar
110 months ago
Hahaha love it.
You're lovin' it?
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Michael Scrip Avatar
110 months ago
Now this is top notch marketing. Someone at McDonalds should get a raise for thinking out of the box.
Top... notch...

:D
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
thingstoponder Avatar
110 months ago
Is McDonalds even aloud to do that?
Sure, why not? It's a computer mockup render of a non-existant product. It's not like it's a stolen prototype or anything.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
aaronhead14 Avatar
110 months ago
Wow, I surely hope iPhone 8 doesn't end up looking like that.... It looks horrible!
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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