How can McDonald’s convince its consumers to not only download the McDelivery app but to keep it on their phone and keep ordering from it?
Instead of keep pushing notifications or changing the whole app platform, we created a giveaway promotion removing all obstacles to happiness by changing something simple, easy to understand and also fun to experience: the app icon. We called it "The Promoticon" - Happiness at your fingerprint, literally.
By updating the McDelivery app icon design, people could easily discover what bites of happiness McDonald's was giving away with each order. If the icon is a Big Mac, people get a free Big Mac, if it is fries, free fries, same with Mcnuggets and many more iconic products.
No need to redeem points, enter codes or exchange coupons, whatever the app looks like you get for free with your order.
Creative Execution
The Promoticon campaign launched across 6 markets in the GCC region for a 7 weeks period.
The first step was to create awareness around the McDelivery app and convince active McDelivery users to shift from call centers to download the mobile app. Knowing that the regional culture revolves around driving and mall related activities, we first launched the Promoticon campaign by going outside of people’s phone, on billboards and radio waves.
We then started to get people excited by revealing the great Promoticon news and the first “Free McNuggets” offer on the most popular social media channels in the region: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The ultimate step was for us to get people to not only keep the app but also encourage others to download it in order to grow the McDelivery app community. We invited people to share the news and tag their friends to enjoy the promotion together.
Results
Consumers all around the GCC quickly adopted the Promoticon with a total of 65% increase in App downloads from the previous month, making it the top pick on the App store in the region.
Not only people downloaded the app but they fell in love with it. With an average of 200% increase in app ordering across the GCC and a skyrocketing number of 459% in Kuwait within the first week the Promoticon became an immediate sensation.
Within the first week of our campaign our Promoticon social content received more than 125,000 social interactions across the GCC region. Not only people started to share the good news they also started to lobby for the next giveaway item, suggesting new icons. McDelivery loyalty exponentially increased with 25% of our active app users coming back on a regular basis.
Competing with generic apps offering to deliver food from thousands of places McDonald’s knew that they had to find a bigger role for the McDelivery app. The brand reinvented the rules of direct marketing and promo push by creating a new way to enjoy easy moments of happiness through an innovative and engaging giveaway promotion: The Promoticon, a new mobile media promo channel. Unlike every other app, we did not need to spam our users with notifications; we just created a simpler way to announce the promotion - the McDelivery app Icon itself.
Through an industry audit and a series of interviews we discovered that our millennial audience were not drawn into using the other generic food delivery apps because of love or brand loyalty.
These generic apps had a system of on-going aggression in place, constantly pushing notifications using messages like “We miss you”, “We haven’t seen you for a long time”, creating this counterfeit emotional connection with the occasional app user.
We needed to transform the McDelivery app into an easy way to simple happiness and create a new behavior for our consumers around the happiness app and turn our consumer into our app ambassadors.