Would You Like to See How We Make Our Fries With That? Behind McDonald's Big Transparency Play

Photo Credit: The OC Register

Is it true that Chuck Norris eats only at McDonald’s? Is there plaster in the milkshakes? What about giraffe meat?

McDonald’s Canada was aware that people were asking these and other much tougher questions about its food online. Rather than ignore the elephant--or in this case, the giraffe in the room--last year, the company decided to confront the online speculation head-on with an interactive digital campaign designed to answer consumers’ questions and dispel myths. In an era when transparency and conversation have become the most aspirational hallmarks of marketing, McDonald’s Canada’s efforts have become one of the most interesting ongoing campaigns of the last while. Read More

7 Tips for Big Brands That Want to Reach Local Consumers

National brands that add local context to their mobile campaigns can expect to see click-through ratesthat are 4% to 7% higher than typical mobile display ads, while adding something as simple as a local phone number to an ad can increase response rates by 40%. While there’s little doubt that local marketing helps big brands get noticed, many national companies have been slow to get onboard with these types of advertising tactics thus far. (Thirty-three percent of the top 100 U.S. brands don’t have mobile-optimized websites, and 16% have no mobile strategy.)

For tips on how national brands can create tailored local campaigns, we spoke with Jamie Olson, vice president of shopper marketing for Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide and the executive responsible for Vicks’ successful mobile campaign in 2011, and Ron Blevins, vice president of digital strategy for Novus, an ad agency focused solely on the local space. Here is their advice for brands thinking of taking the leap into local.

1) Start by asking why local is attractive. Olson recommends that national brands start by pinpointing why it is they want to go local with their marketing. Is it to reach a new demographic? Overcome a particular obstacle to reaching that demographic? Or maybe to try out a new mobile platform that customers are using? The answers to these questions will guide which tools Olson recommends companies use to achieve their advertising goals.

2) Keep audience size in mind. The more criteria that a brand uses when deciding which customers should receive its targeted messages, the higher the click-through rates and redemption stats will be. The flip-side to this, however, is that brands can expect to hit fewer people through their local campaigns than they would with national outreach efforts. For these reasons, Olson says local marketing is best for brands that are comfortable focusing on the quality of leads that come in, versus the quantity of click-throughs and coupon redemptions.

3) Think outside the box. To get the most benefit out of local investment, Blevins says brands need to find out how they can customize their ads. Rather than taking the easy way out by using local inventory aggregators or geo-targeted display ads, companies should opt for custom executions such as sponsorships, unique ad units, and content integration with local publishers. Brands that engage in these types of programs at Novus have seen dramatic increases in their marketing performance, and Blevins says the impact these ad runs have on consumers can’t be understated. Read More

87% Of Connected Consumers Prefer Websites & Mobile Sites Over Apps

Welcome to the connected consumer. This person most likely has a tablet and smartphone, and is constantly connected to their friends via Facebook. Today, more than 60% of 25-34 year-olds (Gen-Y) own a smartphone. One in three online consumers will buy a tablet by 2014. That's a lot to digest at once, right? A new survey from Zmags investigates the connected consumer and their digital habits.

Only 4% of these consumers use branded apps. Eighty-seven percent prefer to use websites and mobile sites. This is good news for the so-called tablet commerce revolution (can a consumer movement be rightly called a "revolution"? I shudder), which suggests that tablet owners are using tablet-optimized websites like Amazon.com. But this connected consumer is not a Gen-Y. She is...wait for it...a 40-something-year-old woman.

The survey also cites Facebook as an untapped opportunity: More than 75% of connected consumers are also active Facebook users. We have written before about how Facebook is not and will not become a mall. Even though 50% of consumers are logged into Facebook while shopping on an e-commerce site and 40% are engaged with brands' fan pages, this doesn't mean they'll start shopping on Facebook. Meanwhile, social commerce sites like Fab.com growing quickly, attracting a design-focused audience.

The survey found that 87% of consumers relied on their PCs and laptops for browsing, researching and purchasing. Most consumers shopped on their tablet from the couch or from their smartphone.