McBakery Men in cook up McDonalds campaign

Written by: Rebecca Milner on July 15, 2008 at 10:27 pm | In Marketing & Ad Trends | 1 Comment

McDonalds Japan kicked off their campaign for the McBakery line with a publicity stunt of “McBakery Men” dressed in neon suits, sunglasses, and bread hats.

Passersby who “discovered” a member of the McBakery crew could enter a raffle for a trip to Paris or McDonalds gift certificates by taking a mobile or digital camera photo of the character, a move that promised to get the campaign coverage on blogs.

The grand prize, which would appeal to the same audience that McDonalds is hoping to win over with the bakery line, attracted over 1,200 entrants. The campaign, well-advertised though news broadcasts on the McDonalds website, took place on July 12 in posh Omotesando, where bakeries far out-number fast food joints.

McBakery comes in three varieties, melon bread, chocolate Danish, and sugar croissant priced at ¥100, and will be available from July 18th.

Pairs nicely with the new Premium Roast coffee, and more evidence that McDonalds continues to court the Starbucks market.

Tags: bread, McBakery, mcdonalds, Omotesando

McDonalds testing IC card “Kazasu Coupon”

Written by: Michael Keferl on May 21, 2008 at 12:17 pm | In Marketing & Ad Trends, Technology & Gadget Trends | 2 Comments

After nearly a year in development, McDonalds Japan has finally released it’s innovative new Kazasu Coupon (Contactless Coupon) loyalty and payment program, beginning with 175 stores and expanding gradually to its 3,800 nationwide stores by 2009.

Kazasu Coupon uses Felica RFID technology installed in most modern Japanese phones to create the first program of this type, allowing customers to choose their meals, redeem coupons, and pay for purchases all with their mobile phones. This is similar to CMode, the (underutilized IMHO) vending machine payment/coupon system from Coca-Cola, but with a far greater reach and selection.

To join, customers must download an application to their phones and register via mobile web, allowing them to choose the coupons they like. When making their purchase at McDonalds, the coupon is redeemed by placing the phone near the RFID reader at the register, instantly adding the item to the order. To complete the order, payment can also be done using NTT Docomo’s iD mobile wallet.

Below is a video from IT Media showing coupon redemption followed by payment.

Kazasu Coupon has the potential to be a powerful CRM program for McDonalds, allowing them to target coupons and campaigns directly to customer’s mobile phones according to their preferences and purchase history.

While this is still in a testing phase, Kazasu Coupon will likely include more interactive features and downloadable content once it becomes a full-fledged loyalty program (I predict “Club Mac” as the name), and will focus on CRM directly to the pockets and pocketbooks of their customers.

McDonalds press release

Tags: CRM, Felica, IC Cards, Marketing, mcdonalds, Mobile, RFID, ToRuCa

McDonalds Mega Series expands, covers your day

Written by: Michael Keferl on March 13, 2008 at 6:58 pm | In Marketing & Ad Trends | 2 Comments

For those of you out there who couldn’t get enough of the enormous Mega Mac hamburger during its limited runs (23 million sold!), you will be happy to know that from March 17th it will have become a permanent fixture on the McDonalds menu. Not only this, but it will be joined by two more limited-run menu items in the “Mega Series”: the new Mega Muffin and the Mega Teriyaki.

To keep things lively, the products are time-restricted both in dates and hours. The Mega Mac is available as usual from 10:30 in the morning, but the Mega Muffin is only available from opening time until 10:30, and the Mega Teriyaki from 7 p.m. until closing time. That, and both of these new items are only available from April 4th until May 8th.

Now you can eat “Mega” all day, every day (if you can handle it) for what they call “Mega Morning”, “Mega Day”, and “Mega Night”. For more information about the new menu, and to check out the new mobile/PC campaign (from March 17th), go to MegaMac.jp.

Press Release

Tags: fast food, mcdonalds, mega mac