2021 Bronze Best Data Storytelling

Agency: Armadillo

Client: McDonald's Restaurants UK

Campaign Name: McDonald's Anniversary Programme: Cheers to One Yea

Campaign Overview

The fast-food giant wanted to create surprise and delight for customers who were celebrating one year on the My McDonald's app, while encouraging them to try more of the menu.

Strategy

There were two key objectives: build affinity and prove its value; and cross-sell the menu.

Firstly, McDonald’s wanted to deepen its relationship with an engaged group of customers by making them feel valued, inspired and excited to interact with the brand.

Full app-based transactional history for these customers provided an excellent opportunity to connect with them individually based on their interactions - and show them how they fit into the chain’s ‘customer family’.

McDonald’s also recognised a golden opportunity to both drive new behaviours and celebrate existing ones. It created an intelligent data algorithm to ensure each customer was served a new product suggestion to try - one they hadn't previously ordered through the app.

Finally, the brand hoped to roll on the one-year celebration into the future, so measured different email content to build insights for later iterations.

Creativity

After what it describes as ‘Adobe ninjitsu’, transactional data was transformed into chapters of the customer’s story. Individuals could see whether they were a 'Night Owl Orderer' or a 'Breakfast Baller’, and compare that to when other customers ordered.

They could even discover their most ordered item, and whether they followed the trend or stood out from the crowd. The 'thank you' was an offer voucher with a nudge to the most popular in-app product they hadn't tried yet.

Simple infographics were playful, intriguing and personalised. Animation and interactivity increased both click-throughs and conversions, thanks to design such as interactive panels and drop-downs revealing comparison data.

Using proprietary tracking pixels, McDonald’s gleaned detailed conversion insight, enabling measurement of effectiveness and content optimisation

Results

Compared to control, targeted customers showed:

• 14% increase in order frequency in the two weeks from receipt of the campaign

• 8% more cross-sell to other menu areas

• 10% increase in customer value over the subsequent three months

• healthy email engagement rate with high open rates (9% above sector average)

The brand has seen a meaningful increase in both frequency of visits and average spend.

The dynamic product cross-sell strategy paid off, with customers inspired to try new menu items - helping McDonald’s to achieve our cross-sell ambitions

The Team

Armadillo - Jo Penn, Client Partner - Rob Pellow, Innovation Director - Hannah Waters, Creative Director - Charlie Bulmer, Copywriter - Nick Beevors, Strategy Director - Will Barnes, Digital Art Director - Jim Green, Head Of Analysis - Steph Dearing, Developer - Yusuf Muhammad, Principle Campaign Manager - Clare Thatcher, Account Director - Steve Brailey, Lead Developer