McDonald's Plays Catch-Up with Mobile

McDonald's wants to catch up to what Starbucks and Panera have been doing for many months--encouraging gadget-toting customers to use advance mobile ordering, adding convenience by speeding up transactions in the store.

Of course, Starbucks was so successful in influencing consumer behavior that its stores were bombarded with advance orders and the company had to reorganize work flow to prevent bottlenecks.

As of today, McDonald's US has more than 69 million Facebook likes, 3.4 million Twitter followers, 2.2 million Instagram followers. Its mobile app allows menu browsing, store locator functions, and more--but no order and pay functions, yet. Bear in mind that this company has a definite digital presence and has experience engaging brand fans.

However, according to one report, McDonald's has lost 500 million transactions to competitors since 2012. That's a lot of transactions. And competition is extremely fierce in the fast-food and casual-dining world, where technology is helping to shape and improve the customer experience.

Big chains have to out-innovate smaller, hungrier rivals (pun intended). Moreover, they have to out-innovate each other to retain market share. Panera has had mobile order for more than a year, and the results indicate it's having an effect on sales. So McDonald's is playing catch-up.

Finally, McDonald's is testing a national mobile system for advance ordering. The initial test involves 29 stores in California (and some UK stores). McDonald's expects to roll the system out month after month, with thousands of stores participating by the end of 2017. Will customers use the new process, and will this be a valuable competitive move for McDonald's?

Domino's Mobile-Led Marketing

Domino's, which built its rep on convenient, speedy delivery, wants to make it really easy to order pizza--applying what it knows about consumer behavior. Above, the "zero click" app that will order your favorite pizza (or whatever you like from the menu) with no clicks. Mobile-led marketing that works. Domino's revenues and profits are up.

Want to order one of its pizzas via emoji? You can do that by tweeting the emoji to Domino's. (The pizza giant is very social, with more than 1 million followers on Twitter, 17 million Facebook likes, and 1 million Instagram followers.) Soon, AI tech will enable online voice ordering a la virtual assistant (think "Alexa" for instance), no clicks needed.

For all the focus on mobile-led marketing, Domino's also has its eye on the in-person customer experience. It's been rolling out new store designs where customers can watch their pizzas being made (seeing it made fresh adds to the experience) and eat in rather than taking out.

Marketing, Art or Science?

art or science?

Trick question, because the answer is both, as you know.

But how much of marketing is art and how much is science? The Australian CMO of a software firm says today's marketing is 70% science, 30% art. Basically, if you're not using science (meaning sophisticated analyses, Big Data, etc.) to inform decisions, you're not optimizing your business...but without the creativity of art, marketing can't touch hearts and minds.

Other marketing execs agree that science is an integral part of targeting, in particular. In the quest for "right time, right place, right message," a YouTube marketing exec argues that the science angle is helping pinpoint the right time and right place, but the art angle is the key ingredient in the right message, critical for brand "magic."

The CMO of Progressive Insurance comments that "A lot of marketers are so proud of their art but they don't know their science." In fact Progressive relies on the art for quirky commercials starring Flo and a cast of characters that engage audiences. But the company also has in-house media buying so it can control exactly what gets placed where and when--the science. "We're not going to outspend anybody. We're going to out-create them," is how he says Progressive competes in an intense marketplace.

The head of strategy at an agency notes: "There are cases where all evidence points to a course of action or where intuition has to prevail and we need to be careful to take these chances even where we know measurement is thin." In other words, trust to creativity for breakthrough marketing.

In the end, effectiveness is what matters the most, measured by metrics that relate to strategic KPIs (key performance indicators). And science can help marketers do a better job of planning, testing, and measuring effectiveness of the art in brand communication. Art and science for today's marketing!

B2B Content Marketing for Thought Leadership, Value Added, and Entertainment

B2B content marketing has always had the goal of establishing a brand or company as an authoritative thought leader and adding value with information.

Now the goal is to entertain as well as to provide information or education. Why?

• One reason is clutter--so many brands are adopting content marketing for differentiation, it's harder to stand out. Brands need to have the right content for their audiences (and their strategies).
• Another reason is media access--B2B customers want to be able to access content marketing via any digital device and through a website or social media. This diversity of points of access makes attracting and retaining an audience more challenging.

Not surprisingly, IBM is an expert in B2B content marketing. Its US home page has links to free downloadable subject guides, developer info, free tools, authoritative studies, and more.

The IBM YouTube Channel includes sub-channels for Watson and other categories of interest to a range of B2B buyers.

The IBM Twitter account (tweet above) posts videos and other content of interest--not just product/service related but general interest, as in the AI content promoted above.

And IBM's Facebook account similarly posts frequently with ever-changing content for B2B buyers, as well as serving as a recruiting tool.

Virtually every post has visual interest, whether a photo or video, to add to the appeal. It's not just a data dump, it's content marketing in a format that fits the B2B audiences' preferred method of accessing information. Importantly, the content marketing is ready 24/7 whenever a buyer anywhere wants to learn more about a subject of interest.

Ranking Top Brands

Who's #1?

No two brand rankings are alike, which is why sometimes Apple is the world's top brand, sometimes Google, sometimes another brand. Year to year, the exact brand rankings can change, but usually the same group of well-known brands stays in the top tier.

Here are three brand rankings published during the past year:

• According to Forbes, Apple is the world's most valuable brand, followed by Google, Microsoft, Coke, and Facebook.  (published 2016)
• According to Interbrand, Apple is the world's best brand followed by Google, Coke, Microsoft, and Toyota. (published 2016)
• According to Brand Finance, Google is the world's most valuable brand, followed by Apple, Amazon, AT&T, and Microsoft. (published 2017)

Even the very top brands like Google actively integrate their names and logos into entertainment viewed by millions. Google Earth played a pivotal role in the movie Lion, for example, showcasing its functionality and features. Apple is a perennial placement favorite in movies, too. Keeping a high profile adds to the image and the value of brand equity.