ORLANDO, FL: Using consumer feedback and signals on social media can help brands achieve various goals, from developing new offerings to formulating campaign creative, according to a senior executive from McDonald's.
Deborah Wahl, chief marketing officer of McDonald's USA, discussed this subject at the Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) 2015 Masters of Marketing Conference in Orlando, Florida.
More specifically, she drilled down into the quick-service chain's decision to roll out all-day breakfast across America earlier this month.
Its analysis of customer posts on social media helped prove that there was meaningful demand for its morning-time snacks throughout the day - and then shaped communications regarding the launch.
"We took customers' tweets - real people's tweets about it - and used that to inform the whole creative strategy, both online and offline and everywhere. And that built the whole campaign. It built the way we formed our creative," said Wahl. (For more, including further campaign details, read Warc's exclusive report: How social media inspired McDonald's to launch all-day breakfast.)
"I think that is the next frontier that we all talk about. But I think we make it a lot harder than it really is, because we're looking for some magical silver bullet. And what I keep seeing working is just using the feedback."
And the marketing effort around the all-day breakfast - which spanned everything from one-to-one tweets to TV ads - prompted an "enormous reaction" among consumers.
"I mean: more chatter and engagement on it than we've had for the last two years of any new product launch that we've done just by using that," Wahl said.
Such an approach can taper right down to whether the brand should use an image of an egg being cracked or grilled - granular insights that, together, can be extremely powerful for the all-day breakfast and beyond.
"And so, for me, that's how I love to use the data: it not only informs the decision, it helps you inform the creativity, the connectivity, the follow on, and the way the whole thing works," Wahl said.
"And it actually became a very organic movement in terms of awareness and knowledge about it."
Deborah Wahl, chief marketing officer of McDonald's USA, discussed this subject at the Association of National Advertisers' (ANA) 2015 Masters of Marketing Conference in Orlando, Florida.
More specifically, she drilled down into the quick-service chain's decision to roll out all-day breakfast across America earlier this month.
Its analysis of customer posts on social media helped prove that there was meaningful demand for its morning-time snacks throughout the day - and then shaped communications regarding the launch.
"We took customers' tweets - real people's tweets about it - and used that to inform the whole creative strategy, both online and offline and everywhere. And that built the whole campaign. It built the way we formed our creative," said Wahl. (For more, including further campaign details, read Warc's exclusive report: How social media inspired McDonald's to launch all-day breakfast.)
"I think that is the next frontier that we all talk about. But I think we make it a lot harder than it really is, because we're looking for some magical silver bullet. And what I keep seeing working is just using the feedback."
And the marketing effort around the all-day breakfast - which spanned everything from one-to-one tweets to TV ads - prompted an "enormous reaction" among consumers.
"I mean: more chatter and engagement on it than we've had for the last two years of any new product launch that we've done just by using that," Wahl said.
Such an approach can taper right down to whether the brand should use an image of an egg being cracked or grilled - granular insights that, together, can be extremely powerful for the all-day breakfast and beyond.
"And so, for me, that's how I love to use the data: it not only informs the decision, it helps you inform the creativity, the connectivity, the follow on, and the way the whole thing works," Wahl said.
"And it actually became a very organic movement in terms of awareness and knowledge about it."
Data sourced from Warc
