Two Friends Secretly Hung Their Own Ad Inside McDonald’s—51 Days Later, Their Prank Changed Their Lives

It started with an empty wall.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the McDonald’s restaurant in Pearland, Texas, where friends Jevh Maravilla and Christian Toledo regularly stopped for food. Like countless fast-food restaurants across the United States, its walls were decorated with large photographs showing customers enjoying burgers, fries, and other menu items.

But one day in 2018, the two friends began looking at those advertisements a little more closely.

Something seemed to be missing.

They could see people from different backgrounds represented in the restaurant’s promotional images, but they did not see Asian customers who looked like them.

Then they noticed something else: a large section of wall was completely empty.

For most customers, an empty restaurant wall would hardly be worth a second thought.

For Maravilla and Toledo, however, it presented an opportunity.

What if they simply created the missing advertisement themselves?

What began as a joke between two friends would eventually become an elaborate prank involving a photoshoot, a huge custom-made poster, a second-hand McDonald’s uniform and a carefully planned mission to install the advertisement without employees realizing what was happening.

Against the odds, it worked.

And the consequences went far beyond anything the two friends could have imagined.

An Empty Wall and an Idea

Maravilla and Toledo were both of Filipino heritage. Maravilla was born and raised in Texas to parents who had immigrated from the Philippines, while Toledo had moved to the United States from the Philippines a few years earlier.

According to reporting at the time, the friends had been visiting the Pearland McDonald’s frequently when they began paying attention to the restaurant’s décor.

Maravilla later explained that they saw advertisements featuring customers from different racial backgrounds but noticed that Asian people were absent.

The observation mattered to them.

Rather than complain formally or post an angry message online, they decided to respond in a very different way.

They would make their own McDonald’s advertisement.

It would feature them.

And if possible, they would put it directly on the restaurant wall.

The idea was funny, but there was also a serious message underneath it.

The two friends wanted to see people who looked like them included in the imagery of an enormously recognizable American brand.

The timing was significant as well. The stunt happened in the summer of 2018, when the success of the film Crazy Rich Asians had generated widespread discussion about Asian representation in American popular culture. Maravilla later said the film had helped inspire the idea.

But creating something convincing enough to pass as an authentic McDonald’s advertisement required more effort than simply taking a photograph on a phone and printing it.

If they were going to do it, they wanted it to look real.

Creating Their Own McDonald’s Advertisement

The friends approached the project with surprising attention to detail.

They staged a photoshoot in which they posed with McDonald’s food, deliberately trying to reproduce the cheerful, casual style of the promotional photography already displayed inside the restaurant.

In the finished image, they appeared to be ordinary customers enjoying McDonald’s food—the same basic visual language used in countless restaurant advertisements.

They then edited the photograph to make it look more professional.

According to CNN reporting carried by local outlets at the time, the project took roughly a month and cost around $100.

The finished image was turned into a giant poster.

Inside Edition reported that it measured approximately 60 inches wide and 50 inches tall.

That created another problem.

Making a poster was one thing.

Walking into a McDonald’s restaurant and hanging an enormous unauthorized advertisement on the wall was something else entirely.

Employees would almost certainly ask questions if two customers walked inside carrying a huge promotional display and began installing it.

So Maravilla needed to look as though he belonged there.

That was when the friends came up with perhaps the cleverest part of the plan.

The $7 Uniform

At the suggestion of a friend, Maravilla searched a local Goodwill store for a McDonald’s uniform.