McDonald’s Teases New App And Raises The Stakes In Digital Offer

Fast food chain McDonald’s has teased the audience at ADMA’s Global Forum there’s a new app coming for the brand.

The current app for the business was cheekily labelled “terrible” by Daniel Lee, senior director – digital experience lead APMEA for McDonald’s.

“I don’t need to tell you it’s a terrible app,” he quipped to the audience at the Forum in Sydney, “because the one star rating in Google tells us so.”

While not embellishing on any extra details, Lee said a new app was coming soon and would contain options such as ordering, delivering, payment mechanisms and café cards.

Besides dropping hints, Lee talked the audience through the numerous digital initiatives the company was expanding into.

When McDonald’s recognised it wasn’t getting through to millennials or mums, the team realised that would cut out a huge chunk of the incoming generation, a travesty for the brand.

Technology has been one of the biggest factors for the fast food chain in attempting to combat this, and while the physical store remains paramount to the business, McDonald’s is ramping up its digital tactics.

Lauding itself as one of the biggest toy distributors in the world, Lee admitted that even though his kids get really excited over the Happy Meal toy, after 30 seconds they’re bored and on to the next one.

The Macca’s of the future plans on combining the digital with the physical, said Lee, where the physical toy can be a gateway to a digital realm of games and extra content.

Lee also gave the audience a sneak preview of what’s cracking in the brains behind the brand’s physical stores. Initiatives such as McDJs – where the customer controls the music, and the reduction of cash registers were among options hinted at.

However, by reducing cash registers, Lee stressed it wouldn’t mean the loss of jobs, as the brand would shift people around the store to other areas such as waiting on tables.

A question posed from an audience member centred around whether there would be change in colours in the brand, as they had had noticed black being used in the ‘Un-McDonald’s’ and ‘Create your taste’ campaign, as opposed to the traditional colours of red and yellow.

“Where markets have been…successful and doing very well in the market, they get a lot of freedom,” replied Lee.

“Certainly no one is going to be messing with the golden arches.”

The freedom to change-up colours isn’t for every market however, said Lee, as it depends on a variety of factors.

Another question posed by an audience member questioned whether a loyalty scheme would be introduced, however Lee joked from their research, many people don’t like to be reminded how much McDonald’s they actually eat. This was evident in early March when many were caught lying about how many burgers they stuff in their gob.

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