Soft Launch – simply put the release of a new product or service to a restricted audience or market in advance of a full launch in a brand terminology. What’s interesting is that McDonald’s India (West & South) launched a soft launch campaign for Valentine’s Day.
However, soft launch is not what you would normally interpret it as in this context, soft launch is a subtle hint that you're in a relationship with someone, without making a formal announcement, that’s today’s GenZ parlance.
It's this insight and trend that McDonald’s (West & South) leveraged for its recent Valentine’s Day marketing campaign. Arvind R.P., Chief Marketing Officer, McDonald’s India (West & South) explains, “As soft launch is a concept where a couple or partners announce their relationship, we took this to show two of the same things - two burgers, two beverages or two of anything. That’s the concept for our Valentine Day campaign. Our entire promotions have been centered around the soft launch, for example, two coffees etc.”
The Year Gone By
Last year was “action packed,” with close to 46 restaurants added, with 15 added in the last quarter alone, across the western and southern markets, largely in the south and smaller towns. Arvind says, “ As we follow our penetration strategy into newer geographies, from a marketing perspective, there were some very exciting campaigns that we rolled out last year.”
In April last year, McDonalds India took inspiration from anime and brought the brand’s Anime universe version, WcDonald’s to life. Selected store’s décor and ambiance donned a new avatar with a complete makeover, reflecting the Anime aesthetics. Even the menu got a WcDonald’s spin, with the addition of a limited-time Savory Chili WcDonald’s Sauce and WcNuggets to the menu with even the packaging being Manga inspired. Targeting GenZ, the experiential campaign even extended to McDonald’s India’s participation at Comic Con India to reach out to larger audiences. Arvind states, “It was a global campaign but we made it our own in India. It was a delight for anime enthusiasts when they saw the anime characters coming alive.”
In September, a key innovation was the launch of multi-millet buns, co-developed with the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), during the National Nutrition Week. The buns were part of the brand's "Real Food Real Good" initiative. McDonald’s India also partnered with chef Sanjeev Kapoor to bring the multi-millet buns to the masses.
September, also saw the debut of the global fan-favourite McCrispy Chicken Burger and its Indian counterpart Crispy Veggie Burger in India, in the “large filling burger space,” just in time for the festive season. The product launch was accompanied by the 'Shordaar Crunch' campaign that put the spotlight on the crunch factor of the McCrispy Chicken and Crispy Veggie burgers.
Betting On Marketing Mix Modelling
From a media perspective, salience building and engagement are key outcomes expected from reach building media. McDonald’s India looks at traditional media and digital to work synergistically and complement each other to deliver both reach and engagement. Arvind states, “Traditional media still has a lot of relevance as Television still reaches many households and more importantly, storytelling on television still carries the day. Digital has its own distinct role, in not only complementing TV in terms of reach building but also in terms of social, for example, building engagement among consumers etc.,” He continues, “Our investments on each platform is guided by a very analytical approach of market mix modeling, which is outcome oriented and where the role of each media channel and RoIs becomes very clear.”
As a marketer, Arvind is a big proponent of Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) and says that marketing has to be held accountable for outcomes and there is a need for a method to ensure that allocated resources deliver outcomes.
He explains, “MMM offers some of the best solutions to help and guide marketers to take the right decisions in resource allocation. At its heart, it's all about incrementality and attribution. Many times, marketers make the mistake of just going with attribution. However, what’s as important as attribution is, incrementality - has it delivered incremental revenues.” He adds, “MMM has some of the best analytic techniques that helps assess the ROI for each channel - be it television (including national and regional channels), digital, Instagram, YouTube, OOH etc. - with the outcome being sales or profitability. For us it's an always-on process and as all analytical models go, the more data you feed in, the better outcomes you get.” For the McCrispy campaign, insights on the RoI were used on usage of digital platforms, Outdoor as well as for retail media. Commenting on retail media Arvind says, “Retail media is a meaningful platform where significant investments, in double-digits. If we have to announce to the users of Swiggy and Zomato of a new product, then advertising within the platform is a useful and a proven way of announcing the new product launch to consumers.”
Tapping Into Fan Truths
In the early 2020’s McDonald’s in the US ‘was in was in danger of becoming a transactional brand.’ The company then looked to ‘uncover the soul of the brand’ by speaking extensively to brand loyalists on what they expected from the brand and their emotional connection/memories of the brand. This consumer-first strategy to garner insights became McDonald’s ‘Fan Truths’ on which the brand based their future marketing campaigns on. One insight was that many loved the unusual combination of fries with McFlurry, and this content drew a lot of engagement.
Arvind states, “Fan Truths is McDonald’s unique perspective of understanding fans; what can we do to bring more fans back to the McDonald's or bring them in more frequently.” He also highlights that great brand building “is all about winning hearts” and this can be done with strong emotional storytelling backed by relatable consumer insights to create an impactful and memorable campaign. “Every campaign builds memories for the brand. If you keep doing high quality, emotion rich storytelling, you are creating fresh memories and refreshing the old memories for the brand, which is the core task for the brand campaigns,” he quips.
While McDonald’s has used macro and micro influencers, the brand has collaborated with popular YouTuber and food writer, Kunal Vijaykar as well as chef Sanjeev Kapoor for its "Real Food Real Good" initiative. A key approach to content marketing is to embed influencer marketing in all marketing campaigns.
Providing An Elevated Consumer Experience
Over the last few years, a big change across many McDonald’s restaurants across India has been the addition of self-ordering kiosks to offer a distinctive, experiential and meaningful experience to consumers. Commenting on the kiosks, Arvind says, “There is still no other brand that has the scale that we have built in self-ordering kiosks. Consumers – GenZs and even the elder – prefer the digital experience due to the ability to personalize and customize your order for an individual or a group. The adoption has been massive and given a choice consumers go straight to the self-ordering kiosk to place their order.”
It is the same level of customization that has McDonald’s loyalists “fire up the McDelivery App” instead of food delivery apps. Another plus point, faster delivery and this has led to significant delivery orders in Mumbai coming through the company’s app. Arvind says, “We are committed to broadening the base in other geographies.”
Driving Through In The Future
McDonald's India's Vision 2027 has clearly laid out its future plans which includes adding 40–50 new restaurants per year to reach 580–630 restaurants by 2027 by expanding into smaller cities and consolidating its presence in the existing big cities, with a majority of new store openings in South India. Another key focus is growing its digital business. The company is also looking to expand McCafé to 100% of McDonald's stores in India and provide an enhanced dining experience by introducing Experience of The Future Restaurants (EOTF) concept restaurants with self-ordering kiosks and table service.
A key emphasis going ahead is Drive-through restaurants. Arvind states, “We are the leaders in drive-throughs in India and want to stay ahead of the game as this is a fast-emerging need. It’s a matter of convenience and that's a big differentiator for consumers. The efficiency of the McDonald's drive-throughs ensures you're in and out in a matter of minutes and we will add these restaurants on highways as well as within cities.” Consumers will also see new products, including products for the health-conscious from McDonald’s India. Arvind states, “We are looking at hitting our growth targets outlined in Vision 2027. We are proactive in investing in the brand and investing more in the brand compared to a year back.”
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