McDonald's Has Been Cool for Years

McDonald's Has Been Cool for Years

For years I’ve been saying this – glad to finally quantify the impact of social advertising.

There have been a mighty few, although a growing number of brands who have actually leveraged their brand voice digitally and didn’t settle to just run bot-filled programmatic ads that say “our brand is the best 🤪” and then claim to have a data-driven digital marketing department.

This elite squad of social standouts is short, and we all know the players:

• Wendy’s
• Slim Jim’s
• McDonald's
• Chipotle
• KFC

As a self-proclaimed low-brow foodie, I live for this stuff.

But it’s not just fun and games & it’s not just the “social media intern” goofin' around with internet humor. No – these brands are driving very real revenue impact for their bottom line. Look at this excerpt from the WSJ on Dons – bold text is well, me & my thoughts injected into some otherwise very solid journalism:

But part of the answer is savvy marketing and a solid digital strategy, and those bode well for the future. One-third of systemwide sales in major markets are now digital (~$8 billion annually in the US), and the U.S. app has 25 million active customers. This is 1/8 US adults. Snapchat & Twitter each boast that 1/5 adults are “active” on their apps.

CEO Chris Kempczinski cited “culturally relevant marketing campaigns” worldwide during Thursday’s investor call. The chain’s U.S. Camp McDonald’s promo through its app, a “virtual camp experience featuring the hottest lineup of food deals, menu hacks, limited-edition merch and music performances from amazing artists,” was a hit over the summer. And, though it came just after the end of the quarter, so were its adult Happy Meals, featuring collectible figurines.

U.S. foot traffic rose by a whopping 37.1% year over year the week of Oct. 3,

when they were introduced, according to Placer.ai, compared with average traffic growth of 4.3% over the preceding four weeks. Read that again. A restaurant that has saturated the farthest reaches of our planet was able to increase in-store traffic by 37% by introducing a limited-time adult happy meal.

Another savvy marketing stunt was revived just recently—the McRib sandwich that the chain has hinted might be on its farewell tour. “Enjoy our famous pork sandwich as if it’s your last!” Like nostalgia, fear of missing out is a tried-and-true tactic.

So, what’s the lesson here:

Every brand has two voices & personas:

• The one that customers actually perceive their brand to have.
• The voice that their corporate overlords force them to use. "Don’t worry, we used an emoji in our ad & posted on national doughnut with a lil pun, so you know we're r e a l l y bold ; )"

As marketers, we must be hyper-critical of the voice we're using in EVERY social touchpoint. We erode trust with every piece of content (ads included) that feels like it was written by a marketer.

Context matters. The internet is a fun place because each platform has its rules, its jokes, and its trends of the moment. The best marketing teams have built the systems & trust to act fast and play in these sandboxes; leveraging opportunities when they present themselves. This requires teams to run fast and not be slowed down by legal and redundant approvals. Ruthlessly reduce the number of revisions between draft and publish.

Closing thoughts:

When you go through the drive-through of Mcdonald's they say, “Welcome back to McDonald's.” There is so greater flex than knowing with absolute certainty that everyone in the country has visited your business. I've been a loyal app user since 2015 & I can promise you, Mcdonald's is leading the industry when it comes to building a digital-first relationship with its customers.