What you need to know:

• Chris Brown is McDonald's’ Chief Customer Officer – he was promoted to CCO from CMO in May.
• Maccas serves 2 million customers a day in Australia. Brown is head of marketing, customer experience, McCafe and more, trying to unify what is a complex, yet simple, business.
• The company launched a loyalty program earlier this year that is reaping the rewards. Already it has 1.6 million active users – those who’ve used it in the past 90 days – and that’s growing.
• Brown is big on brand while demonstrating return on investment and using some tactical, short spend. He should be – he worked alongside Les Binet in the late 90s at BMP DDB London. “I’m not sure Les would allow me not to believe it,” Brown adds.
• Maccas is preparing for economic volatility and catering for the “flexitarians” – flexible vegetarians – through the McPlant, which is being trialled in Victoria.

Two million people enter through the doors underneath McDonald's’ golden arches each day in Australia, and Chief Customer Officer Chris Brown – formerly its Chief Marketing Officer –is in charge of that experience.

The former DDB New York CEO and President, R/GA Group Managing Director and lifelong agency stalwart went brand-side at the quick service retailer less than two years ago.

Since then, the company has launched a loyalty program that has grown to more than 1.5 million people, created a ‘McPlant’ burger product to trial in Melbourne to reach the estimated 40 per cent of Australians who are “flexitarian”, and delivered bumper 2021 results. The company reported revenue of $1.831 billion in 2021, with profit of more than $236 million. 

The Australian McDonald's market, known for being “an absolute standout” for innovation – McCafe was invented here back in 1993, has recently appointed a new local CEO after the former was called up to head office in the US. But there’s a wave of global volatility coming and changing consumer behaviour that Brown must get ahead of, while maintaining a price point that customers value.

Marketing + CX + McCafe + more

In May, Brown got a promotion. As CCO, instead of CMO, he has custody of not only the marketing function but also customer experience, McCafe, driving positive culture, and understanding myriad customer journeys across the business.

“It's definitely an enterprise or business-wide role, but I don't have functional responsibility for technology. I don't have functional responsibility for operations – my operations partner would say, 'thank goodness for that'. But what it really is about creating a more cohesive, horizontal view across the business, working very collaboratively,” Brown says.

“I'm a massive believer in ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’, that Peter Drucker quote. That if you don't get that right, nothing will work effectively.”

Maccas is a complex business that is also, in a way, simple. There are many ways the two million daily customers can interact with the business, but each are there for the same menu of reasons.  

“You can walk through the doors into the restaurant, go up to the front counter, and order a meal. You can use kiosk, you can use your phone, you can go through drive-through, you can go through delivery,” Brown says.

“So clearly, as we move forward, on one hand, I think the business is extremely complicated, and on the other hand, there's some of the fundamental kind of simplicity. It's a restaurant that serves customers. It's just the way that we serve those customers has significantly changed over the last 50 years in Australia. I think technology is a massive enabler of understanding those pain points and then, in some respects, fixing or addressing them.”

The app is a big part of those changes. It has been “hugely successful”, in fact, Brown adds.

The MyMaccas app has been around since 2017, but Covid, and a desire to avoid face to face human contact, led to a dramatic acceleration of use. It now generates 30 million orders annually. 

“When we originally launched it, it would be one of the ways our customers would engage. So you might have the app on your phone, but then you might just go through the drive through and pay with your card, et cetera,” Brown says.

“I think, increasingly, we're seeing the app being used as the by a core group of people as the way that they interact with us, which is completely understandable. Clearly, like a lot of businesses and brands through the Covid period, we saw rapid acceleration of the app.”

McLoyalty program

In March, the MyMaccas app became the home of the new McDonalds loyalty program. Before that, there had been a coffee loyalty scheme, but it was effectively a punch card for coffee, Brown says. Now, every $1 spent on eligible food and drink became 100 points, redeemable for certain menu items. “The only thing better than enjoying your Macca’s faves is being rewarded for it,” Maccas said in its announcement. 

When the rewards program was trialled in South Australia, it drove a 20 per cent increase in sales. 

Brown says the app, and the loyalty program, now has 1.6 million active users, which includes those who’ve been active within the previous 90 days. “It's quite a high number,” he says. McDonalds is a mass brand but it with a one-to-one philosophy, he adds, which is becoming more successful as personalisation improves.

“It's very much about understanding our customers, providing value, providing more relevant offers, products, and then ultimately experiences. This is something that will evolve over time and reward people for being a customer of McDonald's,” he says.

“By launching loyalty, obviously we're providing rewards. That's an increased functionality. I think what the app has also allowed us to do is deliver more personalised and relevant value. That's increasingly important in today's environment. It provides utility because it's easy to use, it's a good interface, but also that you can not only get what we call mass digital offers, but you can also get more personalised offers as well.”

Interestingly, Australia is a late adopter to the McDonald's loyalty program. It is about the 40th country to have rolled it out, which, Brown reckons, have given the local team an advantage – Aussie execs could watch and learn from others. Canada launched just before Australia.
“Over a period of time – whether it's two years, three years, four years, five years – I think we will be continuing to look at how we can make the MyMaccas experiences as rewarding and valuable as possible to our customers,” Brown says.

“There's innovation that the UK are trying that you can dedicate your points to charity, which I think is really interesting. We're not looking at loyalty as a kind of ‘set and forget’, but how can we continue to evolve it to be, as I say, as valuable and rewarding for our customers? I think we talk a lot about value for money, but a really important metric is ‘treats me like a valued customer’ – and I think loyalty is a big part of that.”

'I wish I knew what was coming'

McDonald's has just launched a new brand platform: “Value means more at Macca’s”. Along with the loyalty program, the loose change menu and weekly deals, the company is safeguarding itself against uncertain economic conditions on the horizon. “We're certainly very cognisant that customer's behaviour is going to change,” Brown says.

“They are going to protect and do more of some things, and they're going to cut and do less of some things. We're very focused as a business to make sure that we are seen as being valuable to them, something that they want to continue to do, pricing wise.”

Interest rates are rising – quickly. Manufacturers worldwide, including QSR restaurants, are feeling the pinch of increasing production costs – and lifting prices as a result. Social market researchers say the current market is playing out very differently to Covid times.  

“I wish I knew exactly what was coming, but I think we’re living in really challenging times,” Brown says.

“When you think about what the world has gone through over the last couple of years. And then you overlay some of the more recent, both global and local challenges that we face. Whether it be the continuation of the pandemic, flooding, floods, supply chain issues, inflation. Whether it be economic or supply chain based, or health or other factors, it's creating, I think, this really challenging environment… We're a feel good, joyous kind of brand, family brand, and there's that intangible value sometimes that provides.

"And whilst it's going to be a challenging few months – hopefully only a few months, but we don't know how long this is going to be – people still want fun and joy in their lives and those moments where they can get together with their family and friends, et cetera. And I think our brand has a role to play in that.”

Les is more 

Between 1997 and 2002, Brown worked as a Business Director at BMP DDB London – alongside, or at least at the same time as – marketing effectiveness luminary Les Binet. At the edge of an economic slowdown, how does McDonald's approach the long and short, brand and tactical balance? Does Brown buy that sort of thinking?

“I'm not sure Les would allow me not to believe it. [I’m a] big believer in what he and Peter Field and others have kind of spoken to,” Brown says.

“And I think it's really important that in times like this that we're even more focused on building the brand in the long term. And I think, sometimes, it can be too simplistic to reduce the argument to 'we're now going to shift one way or the other'. We have a long-term ambition to continue to invest more in brand and long-term brand building. There are tactics that we'll use, but I also think that it's really important that we can prove that the return on our investment is better when we're investing in brand building and longer-term initiatives. As I say, that doesn't give you a pass not to worry about tactics in the short term, but really that's our long-term focus.”

Bringing creativity into the mix, as well as a test and learn mindset, is what has worked for McDonald's. McCafe, as mentioned above, was an Australian innovation.

“The business challenge was 'are we a really credible coffee company'? The consumer tension was, ‘great coffee matters’. Not having coffee or a bad coffee can ruin your day,” Brown says.

“We had a product truth, we had a new blend. So you bring all those things together. Our organising thought from them at cafe business is ‘Coffee Fit for an Aussie’ because Aussies have high expectations of coffee… McDonald's is a very good business at measuring things. What you can't measure, you can't improve. We have that measurement philosophy as well, but also being a bit adventurous in some of the things, but often very clear insight and idea.”

Meet the Flexitarians

That measurement expertise has found a segment of Australians – “north of 40 per cent” – who could be considered “flexitarians”, a portmanteau of ‘flexible’ and ‘vegetarian’.

The McPlant burger is being tested in Victoria at present with a view to roll out more widely.

“It’s performing really well, so we definitely see a role for plant. We absolutely believe that,” Brown says. “It's about making sure that we've got a menu that's evolving. We still obviously have our classics and favourites, but we continue to evolve the menu to reflect changing desires of our customers.”

Joining the brand side

It has been a challenge, moving from agency to brand-side, but Brown says it’s been “really enjoyable” so far.

“I really enjoyed my kind of agency career. I'm not that old. But when I think about the opportunities to go client side… working with a senior level of agencies - and those agencies were quite different,” he says.

“At the time, we were talking about kind of integrated marketing capabilities and I think I definitely got more of that experience here than I would have got in London. So really understanding how different channels work, getting to meet different from those disciplines… what I have found really interesting is the more commercial side, the operational side, working closely with my supply chain partners.

“I think the aperture and canvas when you go client side is so much broader, and understanding the role that marketing plays and the customer plays, and then how you influence the business to make good decisions, I think has been really invigorating actually.”