In 2003, Justin Timberlake helped launch an ambitious new McDonald’s marketing campaign. Tied around the slogan “I’m Lovin’ It,” the advertising blitz marked, surprisingly, the first time the venerable fast-food company had ever used a single message and set of commercials worldwide at the same time. Over the past 13 years, “I’m Lovin’ It” has gone on to become by far the longest-running McDonald’s slogan in history. And the jingle’s “ba da ba ba ba” vocal hook, originally sung by Timberlake, has grown more famous than Timberlake’s actual hits.
“I’m Lovin’ It” popped up in discussion again last month when word resurfaced of Pusha T’s involvement. The now-president of Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music basked in the attention on Twitter, showing what a hold this multibillion-dollar melody still has on the popular imagination. As it turns out, the full story behind the McDonald’s ditty is part David and Goliath, part King Midas, and part “Mad Men,” with plenty that foreshadows both the 21st-century music industry and the culture beyond it.
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Early in 2003, its business in trouble, McDonald’s held a competition between 14 international ad agencies, including the industry’s largest. The winning firm, Heye & Partner—though affiliated with a bigger company—was a “tiny” shop, according to The Wall Street Journal, and based in, of all places, the quiet Munich suburb of Unterhaching, Germany. (Not as delicious as Hamburg, but still.) The idea: “ich liebe es,” which translates to “I love it.” That September, McDonald’s debuted its campaign in Germany in recognition of the agency’s role.
Music, specifically hip-hop, was part of the package from the beginning. Heye worked with German music house Mona Davis Music. In 2004, Mona Davis president Tom Batoy told Adweek he got the inspiration for “ba da ba ba ba,” the campaign’s “audio logo,” when he heard an unnamed backup vocalist sing it in the studio. “Everybody can remember it,” he said at the time.
McDonald’s spent $1.37 billion on advertising the year of “I’m Lovin’ It,” according to AdAge, so it’s understandable that many people played a part. (Think of all the collaborators credited on today’s blockbuster albums like Beyoncé’s Lemonade.) But McDonald’s specifically named Mona Davis as leading “music development.” Batoy and his business partner Franco Tortora are consistently listed among the songwriters for the myriad versions of “I’m Lovin’ It” in the databases of ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, organizations that track songwriting royalties.
“I’m Lovin’ It” was no ordinary jingle. It was also a full-fledged Timberlake song, credited to Batoy, Tortora, Heye creative director Andreas Forberger, and Pharrell Williams. With nary a mention of McDonald’s, MTV News reported in August 2003 that “I’m Lovin’ It” had been scheduled for the former ’NSYNC leader’s second solo album, “but since it’s already leaked to radio and the internet, he’s going to release it this fall.” The Neptunes, the duo of Pharrell and Chad Hugo, produced the track, and the video was directed by Paul Hunter, the same person who oversaw the visuals for “Señorita,” from Timberlake’s 2002 LP Justified. A three-song I’m Lovin’ It EP hit No. 1 in Belgium. (Timberlake’s backing vocalist on Justified’s “Rock Your Body,” Vanessa Marquez, also reportedly sings on “I’m Lovin’ It.”)
Steve Stoute, a music industry veteran and marketing executive who introduced McDonald’s to Timberlake, has described this approach as “reverse engineering,” boosting the credibility of a brand’s message by “first putting it in a pop culture form that isn’t connected in any way to the brand.” In his 2011 book The Tanning of America, Stoute explains this step by step: “Commission a song to be performed by an iconic artist; promote it months before [the] McDonald’s campaign; and at the same time start promoting the marketing slogan.” Just like marketing a movie. Consider how Timberlake released his 2016 chart-topper, Trolls soundtrack selection “Can’t Stop the Feeling!,” several months before the movie will hit theaters.
McDonald’s introduced “I’m Lovin’ It” with five commercials. They were aimed at different demographics, translated into 11 languages, and at times customized for certain regions. The U.S. commercials, McDonald’s announced in September 2003, would feature cameo appearances and vocals from Timberlake, production from the Neptunes, and rapping from Clipse, Pusha T's duo with his brother No Malice (then just Malice).
If the recent reports are to be believed, Pusha also wrote the jingle. “That’s crazy that Pusha T wrote the song to McDonald’s ‘I’m Lovin’ It,’” Steve Stoute—the executive who introduced JT to McD's—told Hot 97’s Ebro Darden in an interview last month, setting off the wave of headlines. Evidently there's something delicious about a rapper famous for his vivid wordplay about moving dope proving just as adept at hawking cheeseburgers.
But others challenge the claim that Pusha wrote or even worked on the actual jingle. “‘Pusha T’ was never involved in the creation of the McDonald’s jingle ‘I’m Lovin’ It,’” Mona Davis’ Tom Batoy tells Pitchfork in an email. Rather, Batoy says he and Franco Tortora created it for the Heye ad agency in Germany. Larry Light, chief marketing officer of McDonald’s at the campaign’s inception, and Danny Saber, a veteran musician and producer who worked as a sound engineer on recording sessions for the jingle at Los Angeles’ Record Plant, also confirm to Pitchfork that “I’m Lovin’ It” originated with those not-so-famous players in Germany. “They were this little company that beat all the big guys,” Saber says of Mona Davis. “For people to come crawling out of the woodwork and trying to claim it, it’s just fucking ridiculous. It’s bullshit.”
Pusha T’s Def Jam rep declined to respond to multiple requests for comment on these counterclaims with clarification of Pusha's role in “I'm Lovin' It.” When asked over the phone about it, Pusha’s manager told Pitchfork, “You'd have to ask Pusha T.” (“It’s funny that people find it so amusing now that I wrote that,” Pusha himself told Pitchfork Radio in June.) A rep for Stoute now tells Pitchfork he doesn’t want to comment on the story any further: “He’s been receiving a ton of press requests about it, and seems eager to move on to new subjects.”
Curiously, who wrote “I’m Lovin’ It” has been contested before. In 2009, a Munich composer sued McDonald’s claiming he wrote the “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle. A German court ruled that a combination of just four tones could not be copyrighted in this case, according to translated reports. The beef seems to be everywhere, where this tune is concerned—a familiar theme given more recent disputes over after-the-fact songwriting credit on songs from Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Also, amusingly, the identity of the rapper in the 2003 German commercials—Dra-Q—was apparently a hotly debated secret at first.
For Timberlake, “I’m Lovin’ It” was a marketing and financial coup that prefigured the agreements he and other pop stars have made with major corporations in more recent years, from Taylor Swift unveiling her 1989 song “Style” in a Target commercial to Jay Z releasing an album in partnership with Samsung. McDonald’s sponsored Timberlake’s European tour, and The New York Times estimated he earned $6 million from the endorsement deal. However, in 2007, Timberlake told British GQ, “I regret the McDonald's deal.” He didn’t explain why. But from Timberlake to Pharrell—and from Clipse to Beyoncé, whose Destiny’s Child took over as “I’m Lovin’ It” endorsers in 2004—the suits at McDonald’s did remarkably well at picking talent that would stay significant deep into the ’10s.
Lately, advertising revenue has helped support not just pop stars like Timberlake, Pharrell, and Beyoncé, but more modest-sized acts such as Tegan and Sara and Matt and Kim, as well. Rappers routinely appear in shoe commercials. Bob Dylan does Super Bowl spots. And McDonald’s has taken to using music by the likes of left-field UK producer Sophie. But voices of dissent still linger in the air: Adam Yauch’s will prohibits the use of Beastie Boys songs in advertisements; Björk, in a 2004 SPIN interview, compared Beyoncé working with Pepsi to “selling your soul to the devil.” These days, bands like Speedy Ortiz take a more nuanced stance toward resisting ads.
“I’m Lovin’ It” was a bet on an increasingly fragmented society of consumers, and by the measure of success valued by the advertising industry, it was a winning one. Previous McDonald’s campaigns were all about “you”: You deserve a break today. We do it all for you. We love to see you smile. The company’s executives realized that wasn’t going to work anymore; people wanted to feel like they were choosing for themselves, whether that meant a JT music video or a McDonald’s “experience.” Larry Light, the former McDonald’s marketing head, describes this attitude in an interview as, “I’ll decide for myself.” Unsurprisingly, he says this millennial point of view resonates even more today.
