Creative, resourceful and simply ingenious!

Those are only a few adjectives to describe the mobile campaign that McDonald’s has put in place and we have discussed this week.

The mobile website and app are direct and straightforward which makes it very appropriate for mobile devices and busy consumers. They provide a unique and creative way to distribute and redeem coupons, as well as entice consumers into McDonald’s restaurants, gaining them more burger sales.
 
While we move forward into an era of high technology and consumers who want more, mobile is the way to attract new customers, as well as retain and reward old ones.

Kudos to McDonald’s. It’s always fun to watch the big brands do a bang-up job of promoting their brand!

McDonald’s Winning Mobile Ad Strategy

Smartphone use is rapidly growing and 9 out of 10 people say they notice mobile ads.

McDonald’s is promoting the new triple cheeseburger on the Rolling Stone mobile website. The ad reads “Spend Less. Taste More” and features the McDonald’s logo as well as an image of its triple cheeseburger. It is simple and eye-catching and when selected, consumers are redirected to a location finder to feed their indulgences.

What I find to be a clever addition to the mobile ad is the Twitter icon that leads to the McDonald’s Twitter landing page. By adding this social network element into the ad, McDonald’s is giving consumers an opportunity to continue a relationship with them.

Another McDonald’s mobile ad that caught my eye was for the Blueberry Banana Nut Oatmeal, a new breakfast product. What’s makes this ad a ‘winner’ is that it is being promoted mainly on Us Magazine’s mobile website. Research shows that people are most likely to read this magazine during the morning hours. Promoting the new breakfast item within a magazine mobile website that has the most traffic in the AM hours is considered a good marketing strategy in my book.

By clicking on the breakfast ad, the smartphone user is able to locate the nearest McDonald’s and obtain mapped directions from their current location. Consumers can do all this without even leaving the mobile website they were initially on. Now that’s trouble-free!

GARDENING WITH PAPA SMURF

Augmented Reality adds computerized graphics and sounds to the natural world as it exists. It matches what you are actually viewing in the real world with a virtual, computer generated scene, adding extra information to what your eyes actually see. It has been around for a while but recently it is being used to give consumers a unique personal experience.

Last year McDonald’s launched an augmented reality campaign that aimed to increase Happy Meal sales by engaging consumers via a Smurfs promotion. McDonald’s created a mobile Smurf game that, when inside a McDonald’s location, came to life. Smurf avatars decorated the restaurant and unlocked additional Smurf fun for consumers.

Kids were able to turn themselves into Smurfs and take part in the game to help garden with Papa Smurf. Kids learned what plants need to grow and practiced this knowledge by taking care of the digital plants on the screen.

Why did this work? In-restaurant signage brought the individuals’ game to life. That is pretty incredible. Kids were able to ‘Smurf-ize’ themselves and see themselves on screen. The whole Smurfs campaign, from the mobile game, to signage, to the Smurf Happy Meal toys were flawlessly integrated, therefore creating growth and higher sales of Happy Meals.

Gaming in the Marketing World

Implementing game-centric design techniques into a marketing campaign is proven to work if incorporated fittingly. Gamification allows brands to deeply engage with its users within an entertaining platform — building participation and trust.

McDonald’s recently ran a mobile ad for a word scramble game that incorporated dollar menu items. In addition to learning about the dollar menu items while playing, users can also find the nearest McDonald’s location. The ad for the game was promoted on popular iPhone apps.

The ad encouraged users to test their McDonald’s knowledge; “You make smart choices every day. Like thinking before you speak and buying the McDouble. Show off your smarts at McDonald’s.” After unscrambling a word, users can share their score on Facebook, which facilitates spreading the word about the McDouble promotion. Users can also browse the dollar menu to see the different items with a picture and description.

What worked about this game? McDonald’s challenged people by asking them to test their knowledge. Not only were people playing the game, they were also learning about products. By capturing people’s attention with this amusing game, consumers were inadvertently thinking about the products. When the consumer later thinks about grabbing a bite to eat, McDonald’s is top of mind.

McDonald’s Moving Mobile Series

McDonald’s — one of my very favorite brands — is dominating mobile marketing and leveraging the power of cutting edge location-based services (LBS) technology. And, while doing so, they are also respecting and harnessing the great power of consumer preference.

Mobile marketing is the latest technology that businesses of all sizes should take advantage of.  McDonald’s has undoubtedly picked up on this. They have created a 360-degree mobile strategy that has a solid following base.

Their mobile strategy includes mobile advertising, a mobile website, a mobile app, gamification, and augmented reality. Throughout the course of this week I thought it would be fun to discuss these five factors that make McDonald’s mobile strategy so victorious, as well as include tips on how your business can do the same.

Chapter 1: Mobile Website and Application

On the McDonald’s mobile website, consumers can learn the nutrition of all menu items, look at job openings and find a McDonald’s nearby. This restaurant finder, when selected, will navigate you turn-by-turn, to the closet restaurant. This tool was great on our recent trip to Maine!

McDonald’s has looked at the main consumers they are serving, people who want FAST food (aka busy consumers), and has made a mobile website that is uncomplicated and incredibly easy for busy people to use. By using LBS, McDonald’s is able to drive in-restaurant traffic, and ultimately, increase sales.

The mobile app has the same features that the site does. It can be downloaded easily on iPhone and Android smartphones. My guess is that since eight million people have already downloaded this new app, consumers are finding it pretty effortless and beneficial.

McDonald’s is gaining incredible insight from the users who download this app. Classic paper coupons are hard to track, but linking a coupon from a mobile device provides practical information businesses can use to understand the habits and preferences of their customers. In return, McDonald’s develops highly personalized promotions that market specific menu items and restaurant locations at preferred times of the day for that customer and sends it right to their phone. The customer is more likely to redeem the coupon because of its personalization. This could never be achieved through plastic membership cards.


Some still view mobile as just a smaller version of the web and overlook the benefits of being able to walk around, while online, with a device that can pinpoint where you are.

Businesses should start thinking about utilizing a mobile app or creating a mobile friendly website now — because by 2014, mobile search is expected to far surpass desktop search.

Don’t let your business get left in the dust, embrace mobile technology!

Making Bed Bugs Our Business

It seems as though the last couple of years we have been hearing a lot of chatter about bed bugs.  One would think this something that would be of concern for an exterminator, but in fact many people have been making bed bugs their business.  Dogs are now being employed to sniff them out, lawyers hired to hold landlord accountable, doctors are staying informed to learn about signs and risks of these pesky insects and now even we have made bed bugs our business!

BBG&G is a full-service advertising agency servicing business from various industries.  As we do with any new client, we immediately dove right into the research phase so that we could learn everything there was to know about bed bugs.  I’ll be the first to admit, there were times that my skin started to crawl just by reading about them.  Through this learning process, I was definitely glad to know that there are resources like Discovery Dogs, which can be used to leverage the upper hand against these nuisances.

Not So Fun Facts That Will Make You Itch

New York City ranked first place in the nation for the city most infected with bed bugs in recent years, according to the world’s largest pest control company. But 2012 has Philadelphia topping the list, while New York City gladly takes third place thanks to certified bed bug sniffing dogs like Daisy, Midas, and Tater from Discovery Dogs.

Bed bugs are parasites that typically live in beds and furniture, preferring to feed on human blood. They have made a comeback this past decade due, in part, to the increase in world travel and globalization. As bed bugs are nocturnal, victims are bitten while asleep — often unaware. Depending on your skin’s sensitivity to the bites, some infestations may go unnoticed. Bed bugs are notoriously difficult to detect and many people find them horrifying, but they do not carry disease and actually pose less of a threat than mosquitoes. 

The Good News

Our client, Discovery Dogs was founded in 2009, when owner Lee Browning Jr. noticed that effective detection services and education were lacking, while bed bug infestations were becoming more prevalent. Still today, the general public’s knowledge on bed bug breeding habits, hiding places, their detection, and methods of extermination needs improvement.  Discovery Dogs has made it their mission to educate and empower homeowners, property managers, and anyone needing to identify and manage the presence of bed bugs. Their team handles the screening and detection process quickly and discretely. If a plan for extermination is required, it can be implemented immediately.

Bed bug sniffing may not be a career with much prestige, but at the end of the day, these canines’ posses a skill putting them in an elite category among their peers.  Canine inspection combines the skills of trained and certified dogs, with an experienced handler, to inspect suspect areas for potential bed bug infestation. A handler focuses on specific target areas for infestation, but will direct the canine to inspect all areas for varying degrees of time. These inspections are commonly conducted in hotels, hospitals, and other areas with community bedding and furniture such as dorm rooms, cruise ships, automobiles, and planes.

The training of the Discovery Dogs is identical to the training used for the detection of explosives and narcotics. While the accuracy rate of canine detection for bed bugs is very high, results are based on the handler’s ability as well as the ability of the dogs.

Tater may not be the first name that pops in your mind when you think of a super hero, but I am sure that there are plenty of New Yorkers that feel he has saved the day.