What you need to know:

• McDonald's "biggest campaign in years" is the launch of McCrispy as Australians cut back on red meat, teaming up with The Kid Laroi to launch its 'Next Big Thing'. 
• McDonald's Chief Customer Officer Chris Brown said the campaign links brand and demand, primarily through the use of digital assets like the MyMaccas app.
• MyMaccas loyalty scheme, launched early 2022, is powering as the cost of living crunch bites, racking up 2.2m customers. Last year nearly a billion points were used to redeem 14 million products.
• Value is critical, per Brown, and last year helped power Maccas passed $2bn in sales, with recrod revenues.
• McDonald's is also fully behind Dylan Alcott's Shift 20 initiative, casting a disabled actor in its Winter Huddle spot. Brown says representing the diversity of its customer base and circa 100,000 employees in advertising is important.

The chicken influencer

In the past 30 years, Australians have doubled their consumption of chicken, now on average eating almost a kilo a week, or 50kgs per annum. At the same time, we're cutting red meat consumption. Hence the world’s largest burger chain backing McCrispy to become its ‘next big thing’, pouring millions into a big brand campaign that Chief Customer Officer Chris Brown says links directly to sales – and a tonne of first party data – via its booming app.

Chicken products already account for around a quarter of McDonald’s sales. Although McCrispy has already launched in other markets including the US, UK and parts of Europe, Australia's version the burger and its multimedia campaign have distinctly local touches: The chicken burger as a social media influencer.

McDonald’s worked with DDB and OMD on ‘The Next Big Thing’, with a TV spot launching on footy finals weekend. It also worked with Digitas on customer experience and tech elements.

The Kid Laroi explains what it would be like if the McCrispy made it big, with the burger amassing followers on social media and obsessed fans, appearing in commercials, signing book deals, making TV shows, rap songs and fashion collaborations...

Conversation plus conversion

“The brief to the agencies was let's do something that we think is really famous and magnetic,” McDonald’s Australia Chief Customer Officer Chris Brown said. “The McCrispy is our next big thing – how do we then bring that to life in a way that feels really authentic to us as a brand? The Kid Laroi is a really authentic spokesperson in that he loves Maccas, but equally importantly he is a rising star in music and culture, Australia’s next big thing.”

In other words, he's living the McCrispy's best life, though a ‘rising star’ might be somewhat underselling The Kid Laroi. The 20-year-old Aussie artist, Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard, is a descendent of the Kamilaroi people of Northern NSW who has already collaborated with global superstars including Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, and has 30 million monthly listeners on Spotify (Bieber has around 75 million). His track ‘Stay’ was one of the most popular tunes of 2021, sitting atop of the Billboard Global 200 charts for weeks.

Either way, Brown said the campaign is full funnel, connecting brand with demand through direct messaging and redemption through the MyMaccas app.

“It's a really innovative campaign in the way in which we've got The Kid Laroi driving that conversation and that earned media, but also in the way we are approaching our CRM strategy and identifying opportunities within that database,” per Brown.

“We've got a highly engaged and growing identified customer base through our MyMaccas app and loyalty programme. So we can responsibly use that data to identify audience segments and deliver more personalised, relevant messages and offers that can drive engagement and trial of our products.”

Coffee, digital, delivery powers record year

Brown knows a thing or two about campaigns that drive culture, engagement and sales. 

Before joining the Golden Arches in late 2020 as its CMO (in May 2022 he was promoted from CMO to CCO), Brown spent the majority of his career at DDB, rising to Australia CEO and then New York President and CEO – Maccas has a long-standing relationship with DDB – and more recently served as R/GA Group Managing Director.

Last year he spearheaded McDonald’s loyalty program launch. Since then it has now amassed 2.2 million members; growing 40 per cent and dishing out 14 million products in the past 12 months. Before that, there had been a coffee loyalty scheme, but it was a punch card for coffee. Now, every $1 spent on eligible food and drink earns points that can be cashed in for menu items.

The success of the loyalty scheme contributed to 9 per cent sales uplift in Australia, with revenue hitting $2bn in 2022, a record – with margin not being eaten away: profit climbed 4 per cent to $245.7m.

Alongside digital gains, CEO Anoni Martinez has cited coffee and delivery as growth accelerants: McCafe now sells around 600,000 cups of coffee a day, while 10 per cent of total sales are via deliveries.

Despite a broader ecom slowdown as people rediscover pre-Covid habits, Brown said McDonad's digital sales continue to rise: While circa 2 million people visit its Australian restaurants daily, more than 40 per cent of orders are now coming through digital channels, including my Maccas, whether through delivery, drive through or even when ordering in store. Which is pushing a massive amount of first party data into its data pool, in turn enabling greater personalisation and offers.

“We have a very omnichannel approach to our business. We don't overly favour one or the other. That said, clearly, there has been an increasing shift to digital channels,” Brown said. “It's really important for us as a business that we deliver a great customer experience irrespective of which channel our customers use.”

Cost of living crunch

Customer experience and value are top of Brown’s agenda as Australia's squeezed middle tightens its belt – though latest Commbank data suggests people are still finding money to spend in fast food outlets where they perceive value.

Brown wouldn’t be drawn on whether the cost of living crisis is fuelling growth, but stressed that McDonald’s has always been focused on “delivering great value for money”. 

“That value is not just the price but also the total experience. So we're focused on how we deliver that tangible value, which can be through our loose change menu, loyalty program and rewards. We recognise the cost of living pressure are real ... and we want to make sure whenever anyone comes to McDonald’s or interacts through whichever channel that we are delivering on ‘value means more at Maccas’ everyday,” he said.

Another ‘value’ Brown is conscious of is how McDonald's represents its customers and staff in communications.

Shifting perceptions about disability

The fast food chain has joined the first tranche of brands, including ANZ, AAMI, Bonds, Kia, McDonalds, Oral-B, nib, Pantene, Uber, and Weet-Bix, to run ads that represent people with disability as part of Dylan Alcott’s Shift 20 initiative.

McDonald’s hired Mia to play the final scene in its Winter Huddle brand campaign, and Brown told Mi3 that its not the first or last time the brand will be representing people with disability in its ads. 

“McDonald's has been a long standing supporter of creating opportunities for people with all abilities in our restaurants. We absolutely have a role to play in ensuring that our brand and marketing represents the diversity of our 110,000 employees and the communities we serve,” he said. 

Brown said that campaign has been warmly received internally and externally – and will be hoping the McCrispy’s big push brings home the bacon. Australia's consumption trends, the macroeconomic environment – and McDonald's ever growing pool of first party data – suggest it most likely will.