Hello everyone, guess I am the last one jumping onto the blogger train.
As a big fan of fast food, I want to relate my first post to Chun's (http://thesocialmedialab.blogspot.com/ -"FB!" A good Marketing tool?) and Chri's (http://i-love-chickenwings.blogspot.com/2011/07/food-and-facebook.html . - Food and Facebook ) posts.
Has everyone heard of Pickle Club ?
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pickle-Club/147689095242742
Actually they are having a collaboration with McDonalds Malvern East (its just across the street from Monash Caulfield Campus) and recently started a further cooperation with McDonalds Holmesglen.
Everything you have to do, is to "like" their page on Facebook and you will receive daily updates of special offers at those two McDonalds.
The questions I want to discuss are, whether it is an effective marketing tool in terms of customer generation and furthermore what it means for McDonalds.
From my personal perspective, I really like their offers, it is really cheap and easy to acces. Sometimes I just jump on facebook when I am on campus and check their offers within one minute.
But the effects on McDonalds as a brand itself are very difficult to measure. In my opinion this marketing tool is only effetctive for a local customer base and therefore will not significantly benefit to the McDonalds brand.
What do you guys think ?
Todays offer is an $2 Double Quarter Pounder. Codeword: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MCDONALD'S MALVERN EAST". Enjoy !
As a big fan of fast food, I want to relate my first post to Chun's (http://thesocialmedialab.blogspot.com/ -"FB!" A good Marketing tool?) and Chri's (http://i-love-chickenwings.blogspot.com/2011/07/food-and-facebook.html . - Food and Facebook ) posts.
Has everyone heard of Pickle Club ?
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pickle-Club/147689095242742
Actually they are having a collaboration with McDonalds Malvern East (its just across the street from Monash Caulfield Campus) and recently started a further cooperation with McDonalds Holmesglen.
Everything you have to do, is to "like" their page on Facebook and you will receive daily updates of special offers at those two McDonalds.
The questions I want to discuss are, whether it is an effective marketing tool in terms of customer generation and furthermore what it means for McDonalds.
From my personal perspective, I really like their offers, it is really cheap and easy to acces. Sometimes I just jump on facebook when I am on campus and check their offers within one minute.
But the effects on McDonalds as a brand itself are very difficult to measure. In my opinion this marketing tool is only effetctive for a local customer base and therefore will not significantly benefit to the McDonalds brand.
What do you guys think ?
Todays offer is an $2 Double Quarter Pounder. Codeword: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MCDONALD'S MALVERN EAST". Enjoy !
Unfortunately from a community health and wellbeing perspective McDs really are marketing innovators. From children's playgrounds, happy meal toys, mcafe layouts and the a free paper with hotcakes (at least that's what I got last Saturday!) they really know how to get our business. Sending millions to an early grave with love, Maccas style!
ReplyDeleteI've been watching the pickle club for a while now, ever since Maccas opened the Malvern store. I've been amazed that it's been so successful, because it is so "un-Maccas". The whole image, look and feel doesn't seem to match the Maccas image. But, incredibly, it works. And works really well.
ReplyDeleteTargeting time-poor and cash-poor students, who don't really care about the "master-brand", I think the underground feel of the pickle club is perfect.
Now, do I have time for a walk to grab that $2 burger tonight?
Seems like it is a good tool since it has many people liking it. It's fairly similar to what many cafe's and fast food restaurants did when 'check-ins' started to become popular on Facebook. They started offering specials if you checked in at a certain time. This seems to be a better way of generating more business though. It'll be interesting to see if that becomes a trend with other fast food chains as well.
ReplyDeleteThis definitely works for them. I am on campus almost every day and on the odd (very odd) occasion I would go there for lunch. I will definitely join this pickle club if it means a bargain meal every now and then. What impact SM (I guess in this example particularly FB) has for a big brand is a difficult question, which I am hoping to discover as we go along.
ReplyDeleteRoss
The Pickle Club has seen to be very successful in using SM to offer their products and bargains. Nearly everyweek i hear a friend of mine talking about new offers which also induces other people to join and even have a meal at McDs. Like Wags said targeting the right target market, i guess was why McDs Malvern became so successful.
ReplyDeleteJust a question, is this Pickle Lub ting only offered in McDs Malvern? Or are the offers applied to other McDs stores as well?
The good thing about pickle is about the value they deliver. You can now see the offer for tomorrow ($2 Big Mac tomorrow. Codeword: "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT"). And it is really targeting the, as Wags mentioned "time-poor and cash-poor students".
ReplyDelete@RoniJ: I haven't heard about the check in offers of the other fast food restaurant, as I m not using a Iphone or the Facebook app on my Blackberry. Do they announce their specific offers in advance ? Or is it like a lottery - you never know what you will get ?
@Ross: the benefit in my opinion - you won't get a spamed. Its just a daily message about the offer. Furthermore you can always hide the Pickle Club feed. All in all i can only see a benefit !
@Chun: currently available in Malvern and Holmesglen Mac
@Wags: I have done some research. The initiaor of Pickle Club is the KellyCoGroup
http://www.kellycogroup.com.au/index.html
They own operates several McDonalds Family Restaurants across suburban Melboune.
In my contempery issue course, i made a research, Mc Donald cares more about social media than KFC. KFC Australia has not tweeted anything yet. I think someday KFC will finally regret.
ReplyDeleteI think the Pickle Club is AMAZING!!!! Whilst it doesnt necessary fit with the ideals of health and wellbeing it has been a good marketing ploy by McDonalds.... and I think by targeting students (something I feel hasnt been done by the big corporates very well) they will see a huge influx of business.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I agree with @Wags - the Pickle Club isnt very McDonalds... well not the image we have seen in recent times... I think its been a good way for them to reinvent themselves within that mid age market. For children they have the Happy Meal, for middle aged women they have healthier options, for families they have dinner boxes.... and now they've got something for uni students, possibly their biggest market.