Tuesdata: How McDonald’s is leaving Hungry Jack’s for dead in the loyalty game
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Today: How McDonald’s is beating the delivery apps – and its rivals – at their own game. And The Unmade Index slumps at the start of the week.
The brands featured today include McDonald’s, Hungry Jacks, KFC, Domino’s, Uber Eats, Door Dash and Menulog. We also cover off the winners and losers of the news rankings, with nine.com.au overtaking 7news.com.au.
The gold(en arches) medal for MyMaccas
The last 12 months has seen a bigger shift in the way that McDonald’s transacts with its customers than at any other point in the company’s half century in Australia. The company has nailed loyalty marketing, played itself into the delivery game, and left Hungry Jack’s for dead in the process.
After some lacklustre years for what was once one of Australia’s best marketed brands, McDonald’s is back on top.
This 1994 DDB ad, created by the late Paul Jones as part of the MacTime campaign, was the high point of McDonald’s advertising in Australia. Now the brand does its best work in loyalty marketing rather than brand
Marketing awards will be won for the speed and scale of the transformation.
The margin of the victory is revealed in new numbers from Ipsos Iris, released today.
Until last month, Australia had gone two years without an industry-endorsed digital currency. The IAB withdrew its endorsement for Nielsen’s Digital Media Ratings in April 2021, and later switched its support to Ipsos Iris, which launched last month.
During that blackout, McDonald’s has struck twice, launching its MyMaccas Rewards program in March 2022, and integrating nationwide delivery into the app last month.
Customer behaviour has been transformed. Most customers ordering food in the store now head for the touch screens, where they are incentivised to link their purchase to the MyMaccas app.
Those ordering for delivery are rapidly learning they’ll get a better deal if they do so via the MyMaccas app, where they’ll get their loyalty points before the Doordasher drops off their order.
In the fast food and delivery category, Ipsos Iris has McDonald’s as an easy winner.
On the web and via its app, McDonald’s is reaching 6.3m of the 14+ internet population. In other words, nearly one in three Australians are opening the McDonald’s app, or navigating to the site. That’s just extraordinary.
It’s double the number of rival brands like KFC (3.1m), Domino’s (3m) and Hungry Jack’s (2.8m).
The data also demonstrates the pecking order of the delivery services. Uber Eats is top with nearly 4.2m users. Then comes DoorDash with 2.8m. Menulog is third, with 2.3m.
The full chart (we cropped it above to make it a little more readable on mobile, but here is is in full below ) also contains one more intriguing morsel.
Price rises at Domino’s killed custom. Last month the company’s share price slumped after boss Don Meij admitted he had imposed too big a price hike. Traffic to the Domino’s site and delivery app fell 17% in February.
Meanwhile, in the news category, nine.com.au moved past 7news.com.au to take second place. Top site was still News Corp’s news.com.au.
Yahoo lost nearly 14% of its audience and fell behind SBS News in tenth place.
Unmade Index starts with a slump
The Unmade Index started the week by following the wider ASX into a slump with a fall of 1.13%
Seven West Media had the worst of it, falling by 5.68%
Fellow broadcasters Nine and HT&E also had down days, while Southern Cross Austereo finished flat.
Time to leave you to your Tuesday. I’ll be back with a midweek update tomorrow.
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