We got your back / During difficult economic times, it’s common for brands to offer deals and offers to encourage customers to continue spending with them. However, applying deals comes with the risk of brand devaluation. As Byron Sharp illustrates in How Brands Grow, customers can show resistance to paying the normal price after paying a discounted price. Moreover, Mark Ritson writes, ‘Brand equity is the difference between a brand and its commodity equivalent. Never forget this. Or that discounting literally reduces that difference.’ The challenge for brands is to create discount campaigns without devaluing their products or brand.
By turning this campaign into an Easter egg hunt style game, Deals Stuck in Time, neatly distracts from the promotional aspect with the fun, interactive element and dials up McDonald’s longevity and good-value credentials. Nord DDB creative director Petter Dixelius told Contagious, ‘The brief was to create a value campaign, which McDonald’s in Sweden do every year after the holidays, which historically is a time when people have less in their wallets. The campaigns are usually tactical out of home [campaigns] with a focus on product and price, but with this creative idea we managed to leverage the last 14 years of tactical OOH investments and simultaneously offer people a pretty good deal.’
Drive downloads / Since the Covid-19 pandemic, 58% of consumers said that mobile app ordering has added to their fast-food experience as it provides a fast and seamless ordering experience. Fast food restaurants further benefit from investing in app innovation because they can market lower price points via direct channels and gather important customer data that aids their audience understanding.
It’s no surprise then that McDonald’s has been pushing app downloads as part of its marketing efforts – in January 2022, McDonald’s Sweden launched The Golden Number campaign, which consisted of a giveaway challenge based on the restaurant’s famous jingle, and the winners of the challenge were announced on the McDonald’s app. Deals Stuck in Time drives app downloads in a similarly fun, engaging way – people have gone to the effort of hunting down a historical deal, after all, the effort to download an app completes the circle.
