About McDonald’s
McDonald’s is one of the world’s largest fast food restaurants, which serves around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries across 35,000 outlets.Richard and Maurice McDonald started company in 1940 in United States as a barbecue restaurant concept, later in 1948 it was changed to a hamburger stand with the help of production line principles .In 1955 Ray Kroc joined his hand with a company as a franchise agent.
Franchisee, an affiliate, or the corporation itself runs a McDonald’s restaurant.Source of income for the McDonald’s Corporation is from the rent, royalties, and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants. According to BBC report in 2012 McDonald’s stands as world’s second largest private employer, with 1.9 million employees, 1.5 million of whom work for franchises.
Menu of McDonald’s includes hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken, french fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, desserts, salads, fish,wraps, smoothies, fruit, and seasoned fries.
Business Objectives:
McDonald’s main aim is to “Lead the Quick Service restaurant market by a programme of site development and profitable restaurant openings”.
Restaurant Perfection: Concentrate on maintaining good quality of delivery, service and cleanliness through perfection in our restaurants.
Operating Structure: Increase restaurant performance with well management, good staff , so that 100% customer satisfaction is achieved and can come up with more outlets in many cities.
The Brand: brand loyalty among customers. To build a new generation who will stay with the brand and then emerge as a long term player. • Target on customers between age- groups 24-38 with children’s to position itself as a family restaurant and the ideal place for kids and teenagers.
Introducing new good items in the menu and making sure that the products meet the requirements of a balanced diet , which helps to increase the number of customers turning up at the restaurant.
Approach / Strategy
Excellent digital marketing campaigns from McDonald’s and result of each Campaign is given below:
1)McDonald’s Increased Operating Hours of Restaurant
McDonald’s has been awarded many times for this particular example to promote increased Operating hours of restaurant.
A third of McDonald’s outlets had their hours extended at the beginning of the year so needed to raise awareness and drive footfall.
They promoted their ads at cash points, petrol stations and they also came up with mobile banner ads encouraging the late night customers to download a new Restaurant Finder app.
Result : Around 500,000 customers visited and an ROI of over 100%.
2)McDonald’s YouTube campaign
McDonald’s set up a YouTube campaign to showcase video responses to some of the questions asked by a customer with respect to food quality.
3) The Track My Macca’s App
This campaign was carried by DDB Group Sydney that addresses issues of food origin.
Using GPS to find out which outlet you are in, the app then uses image recognition software to find out what the customer is having and then provides a info about the food to be eaten.
Result : The app was downloaded over 45,000 times while the PR campaign behind it received over 600m impressions worth of global PR coverage.
4) Digital Happy Meals Play Zones
In UK McDonald’s introduced Happy Meals Play Zones to entertain children eating in McDonald’s outlets.
With images and characters being projected onto the floor, with the help of tracking cameras and infra-red technology.
5) McDonald’s Iced Fruit Smoothie App
Sales of particular products such as smoothies and ice creams are highly dependent on the weather.
With the temperature rising and companies like Innocent raising the consumption of smoothie products, McDonald’s wanted a way to connect with consumers looking for this type of drink.
Of note however is that the tool is not in a new app – rather, it is baked in to the app that consumers have already downloaded, with an update from the App Store changing the content.
Result : By playing the interactive game, consumers win a free smoothie which they can redeem instore.
While this may cost something, the upsell opportunity that comes with driving footfall often results in a higher return on investment.
6) Angry Birds in McDonald’s China
In Order to get more customers Mcdonald’s planned and introduced the Angry Birds game inside the stores and the most interesting part is particular levels could be unlocked from specific stores in order to repeat the customers.
McDonald’s developed the app which allows its customers to vote their favourite McDonald’s outlet in China.
7) McDonald’s Denmark Coin offers App
McDonald’s in most of its Denmark outlets introduced a game where in people who visit those outlets can scan QR codes to collect points, which they can use them to buy food at the McDonald’s outlets.
Result: Denmark being a less populated country i.e 5.5 million made a collection of 30,000 virtual points on the first day.
Learnings:
- Digital marketing helps in connecting and engaging with customers, which results in generating higher revenues, higher conversion rates.
- Digital marketing helps to increase the visibility of Brand.
- Digital marketing is a cheaper way to promote the brand compared to traditional advertising,results in increased business profit.
- Customers will view company in a different light and your associates and competitors will take you much more seriously when you put digital marketing in a full-court press for your business brand.
Image Credits – McDonalds
