50-cent double cheeseburgers and free food for life: How McDonald's aims to boost mobile sales

Last vacation season, McDonald's leaned connected vocalist Mariah Carey's starpower and discounts to thrust customers to their mobile app.

This year, the Chicago-based edifice elephantine is going further, giving customers the accidental to triumph escaped McDonald's for beingness for themselves and 3 of their friends with each mobile order. The concatenation is besides offering exclusive entree to branded merch releases and deals connected food, similar a 50-cent treble cheeseburger.

The three-week-long promotion, which began Monday, is portion of the company's broader integer strategy to thrust postulation to its mobile app done seasonal promotions and make recurring gross without sacrificing profitability.

In caller years, edifice companies person turned to loyalty programs to thrust downloads of their mobile app and person customers to support coming back. McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski said successful precocious October that astir two-thirds of U.S. customers who utilized the app successful the past twelvemonth had been progressive connected it successful the erstwhile 90 days.

Tariq Hassan, main selling and lawsuit acquisition serviceman for McDonald's U.S. division, told CNBC that app users are "more meaningful and much profitable" than different customers.

A small much than a twelvemonth aft its U.S. launch, McDonald's loyalty programme has 25 cardinal members who had been progressive connected the company's mobile app implicit the anterior 90 days, arsenic of Sept. 30.

For comparison, Starbucks, which has had a loyalty programme for much than a decade, reported 28.7 cardinal progressive U.S. members during its latest quarter. Chipotle Mexican Grill's three-year-old rewards programme has 30 cardinal members, though the concatenation doesn't disclose however galore person been progressive implicit the past 3 months.

Hassan, who joined McDonald's much than a twelvemonth agone aft a stint astatine Petco, said that astir 40% of integer customers commencement utilizing its app acknowledgment to selling and paid media. The fast-food elephantine has been getting creative, pushing beyond advertizing and discounts to pull caller app users, peculiarly done promotions pegged to the clip of year.

For example, the institution held "Camp McDonald's" for 4 weeks this summer. The programme included discounts connected its paper items, virtual concerts and limited-edition merch collaborations for mobile app users.

Hassan said the institution had a extremity of adding 2 cardinal app users during the virtual campy but didn't stock however galore members it really added. (The promotion besides angered immoderate customers erstwhile issues with the third-party tract resulted successful hours-long virtual queues to bargain a Grimace-themed excavation interval that sold out.)

Still, McDonald's integer strategy isn't mean to beryllium flashy. Hassan said he's told his squad to beryllium comfy being "boring."

"You don't alteration your strategy conscionable to alteration it, to bash the caller and breathtaking thing," helium said.

One mode that McDonald's has gotten comfy being boring is done its menu. In the aboriginal days of the pandemic, similar truthful galore different edifice chains, McDonald's scaled backmost its offerings, eliminating items similar parfaits and salads, to absorption connected classical items similar the Big Mac and McNuggets. The determination distant from limited-time paper items proved successful, fueling U.S. income maturation adjacent arsenic lockdowns lifted and consumers resumed their aged routines.

McDonald's integer promotions person besides leaned connected halfway paper items. Celebrity meals successful 2020 and 2021 enactment a spotlight connected the favourite orders of musicians specified arsenic rapper Saweetie, featuring classical paper items similar French fries and cheeseburgers.

"When you person that benignant of strategical consistency, it gives you much clip to wrapper those windows with truly interesting, breathtaking and unexpected experiences," Hassan said.