CAPACITY BASED MCDELIVERY

Gold Spike

Case Film

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TitleCAPACITY BASED MCDELIVERY
BrandMCDONALD'S
Product / ServiceMCDONALD'S PRODUCTS - ALL OF THEM
CategoryC02. Use of Real-time Data
EntrantOMD SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Idea Creation OMD SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Media Placement OMD SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE

Credits

Name Company Position
Elisa Chua OMD Singapore Business Director
Sadhan Mishra OMD Regional Business Director
Karen Soo OMD Singapore Digital Director
Melissa Tan OMD Singapore Associate Manager
Riddhi Parekh OMD Singapore Specialist, Performance Media

The Campaign

Consumer Insight: Hungry consumers left waiting are unforgiving. The food delivery options now available at the touch of a button means consumer loyalty is a thing of the past – let them down and we risk never getting their business again. Business Insight: Through analysis of real-time order volume data we found that supply & demand were highly localized and varied significantly at any one time among restaurants. A busy restaurant could have an average wait time of 90 minutes, struggling to fulfil orders and offering a sub-optimal customer experience, while a quiet restaurant elsewhere could have a wait time of 30 minutes, with unused capacity. 15% sales potential was lost because of capacity limitations in accepting orders.

Creative Execution

How did we make this a reality? 1. We divided Singapore into more than 25 neighbourhoods using Google’s hyper-local targeting capability. 2. We set up a real-time data feed (API) into McDonald’s nation-wide delivery management system to access customer delivery wait time by neighbourhood every 5 minutes. 3. Using a custom-built coding script, neighbourhoods were then categorised as high, medium or low capacity in real time as demand fluctuated. 4. We established a set of capacity-based media activation rules in Google AdWords that would determine how aggressive spends would be in that neighbourhood and what messages would be served – all optimised in real-time. If capacity went up so did search spend levels and the creative celebrated a lower wait time. If capacity went down search spend levels dropped. Ads were paused altogether in neighbourhoods that were not able to deliver due to high demand.

The campaign was an enormous success, delivering incremental growth from an existing leadership position. 1. More cost-efficient delivery orders. 35% increase in average monthly ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) in Sep/Oct 2016 vs. target of 10% 2. Increased demand for delivery to restaurants that could accommodate additional demand. 9% increase in monthly delivery revenue in Sep/Oct 2016 attributed to SEM vs. target of 2% The Singapore success story is now serving as a template for real-time data-driven marketing globally within McDonald’s. “The pilot has been successful and we are planning to roll this out in more markets.” – Silvia Lagnado, Global CMO, McDonald’s Success recognised so far: • Silver Lion at Cannes • Gold: Festival of Media APAC • Gold: Cristal Awards • Silver: The Internationalist

This case clearly demonstrates the elevated role of media to create an impactful business solution through the smart use of real-time data, in a global first for any brand in any category. To maintain competitive advantage for McDelivery (McDonald’s food delivery service),we identified a way to maximise McDonald’s biggest strengths – the breadth of their store network and the depth of their owned data. We created an agile search ad delivery system, which responded to real-time restaurant capacity to dynamically change ad-spend and messaging in each delivery neighbourhood. This is a success in Singapore and has started going global.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

To maintain a competitive advantage, we had to identify how we maximise McDonald’s biggest strengths – the breadth of their store network and the depth of their owned data - to unlock the potential of every restaurant. We focused our attention on a new use of paid search as it consistently delivered maximum ROI for McDelivery. Partnering with Google, we developed a global first for any brand in any category; mapping real-time restaurant-level data against paid search spends level via a live API. If demand spiked in an area and delivery wait time was compromised, search spend decreased immediately in response. In areas where there was excess capacity, spends were pushed up and the ad copy celebrated the low wait time. Each restaurant across 25+ zones in Singapore was able to churn the optimal level of orders, resulting in better use of ad-dollars efficiency and a better customer experience.