McDonald’s — McLSM

Business Challenge & Background

McDonald's has over 100 restaurants across New Zealand. Each restaurant manager (many of them franchisee owners) is responsible for what is referred to as Local Store Marketing. This might be a local newspaper ad, or a flyer drop with a special offer. Whilst these marketing decisions can be taken at a local level, McDonald's wants to ensure consistency with brand standards. The franchisees also only get to meet up, once per year at an annual conference, and hence opportunities for communicating with their peers is limited.

What We Did

In cooperation with McDonald’s New Zealand and their agency, Marker created a website that helped to build a strong online community of franchisees and restaurant managers. This included functionality which streamlined frequent requests by the restaurant owners, Marker built a web-based system which allowed franchisees to browse through marketing and advertising resources as well as contribute to the collective franchisees by contributing ideas for success. Features in the web site include:

McDonald’s branding as per official guidelines
Request & calendaring system for franchisee resources
Forum for franchisees to learn from and contribute to
Artwork Wizard ordering and customisation system

Outcomes

Reduced Costs

By moving the ordering process for artwork online, there was a substantial saving in time and money for McDonald's. This was also a quicker process for the restaurant manager.

Online Community

Ideas Central in particular, allowed restaurant managers to share ideas with their peers and ensure that useful knowledge would be available across the network instantly.

Increased Efficiency

The online calendar and booking system for promotional assets, such as Ronald McDonald, streamlined the process and created a better experience for the restaurants and head office.