When McDonald’s wanted to reach digital customers, Bernstein-Rein showed them how to build something that would APP-eal to users and boost average transaction values.
At Bernstein-Rein, we believe retail intelligence comes from consumer insights, a true brand purpose, and half a century of unrivaled experience. We put these beliefs together to accelerate growth. This approach is called Retailigent™ – it's what drives our work every day.
With the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) landscape continuing to evolve and sharpen their ways of reaching the valuable digital customer, we saw an opportunity for McDonald’s that would alter and boost purchase behavior through their mobile app.
Not only did we see the opportunity to drive awareness and trial of the McDonald’s mobile app, we knew we could drive app downloads AND engagement which would ultimately result in increased guest counts — and the always coveted share of wallet.
Consumers use technology to make things happen in their lives every day.
We developed the “Make Life ‘Appen” campaign and conveyed messages across multiple dayparts, connecting with customers during every mealtime opportunity, tying the McDonald’s app into those everyday moments.
In an effort to drive new routines and brand loyalty, we launched a multi-faceted digitally led campaign with a focus on the key features and benefits of the app. We drove downloads by deploying incentives and then continued the retention strategy through fresh and enticing daily offers exclusively available through the app — achieving both high average check and frequency of use.
Over the first 6 months, digital app penetration hit 16.1%, ranking our local co-op sixth out of 56 McDonald’s business units in the U.S. Additionally, we drove 239% increase in app downloads (vs previous year) and 198% increase in monthly app usage.
Not only did our customers continue to engage with the app — on average, active app users spent +80% more per month than non-users of the app.
