Author: Xiaoshidai
After launching two waves of "10 yuan burger" campaigns this year and receiving positive responses, McDonald's China will bring another wave of promotions. This time, the promotion will last for more than a month, starting on July 31 and ending in early September.
Xiaoshidai noticed that this wave of fan-limited activities called "88 Gold Powder Festival" is a large-scale membership event held in the context of the 7th anniversary of McDonald's China (Golden Arches), which is the longest promotion that has lasted for many days this year, and will also be the longest "Gold Powder Festival" in McDonald's China history.
It is understood that the "Golden Powder Festival" is the festival of "Golden Arches fans", and "August 8" is the anniversary of McDonald's China's entry into the Golden Arches era seven years ago. As customers continue to seek value-for-money products, the campaign will help amplify McDonald's China's structural competitive advantage and expand its market share in the domestic fast food industry. In this regard, McDonald's China said: "We adhere to the long-term principle and continue to strengthen McDonald's business gene QSCV, which is Q quality, S service, and C clean, where V is to continue to provide customers with value-for-money products." ”
Here's a look at the latest promotions and the ideas behind them.
"Ready for battle"
"After 3 years, it is about to return", "200,000+ employees are ready to fight", "6000+ stores are ready to go"...... In the past few days, McDonald's restaurants around the world have continued to release news in the community to build momentum for the "88 Gold Powder Festival" that will return in 2024.
Today, according to the coupons (pictured below) that Snack Dai saw from the community, the event lasts for a total of five weeks, and the promotion covers every calendar day during the promotion period, for a total of 35 days.
It is worth noting that unlike the "88 Member Day" in previous years, McDonald's took out a classic three-piece set of value-added packages to participate in the event this time, and the second set was 2 yuan. That is to say, two sets of all-use single set start at 17.25 yuan, you can have a delicious set meal of burger + drink + fries. In the above-mentioned coupon, McDonald's even called this offer "impossible 'discount'".
According to the data, McDonald's China began to launch the "88 Member Festival" in 2018; In 2020, McDonald's China announced the launch of the "88 Gold Powder Festival" for the first time. That year, the event lasted for 28 days, and the total amount of concessions was said to be more than 200 million yuan.
In addition to the duration of the festival, another feature of the "88 Gold Powder Festival" is member-only activities. In other words, in this large-scale membership event, only fans of McDonald's China can get relevant "super discounts".
"McDonald's China invites fans to celebrate the 7th anniversary of the Golden Arches." Today, when inquired about the snack generation, McDonald's China replied to the background of the return of the event. It said that this year's "88 Gold Powder Festival" not only provides consumers with value-for-money package discounts, but also classic popular snacks and limited peripherals.
McDonald's China also emphasized that in addition to value-for-money and high-quality dining experience, it also pays attention to creating more emotional connections for members and fans.
Among them, McDonald's responded to the enthusiasm of fans by playing with fans and consumers on various social media platforms through "Fan Truth". This not only enhances the value of the product itself, but also deepens the fans' affection and dependence on the brand.
"In addition, the company will also launch limited delicious new products, peripherals, offline pop-up activities, etc. from time to time, and is committed to creating a diversified consumption experience for fans and consumers." McDonald's China said.
Interestingly, behind the return of the "88 Gold Powder Festival", it can also be corroborated by some recent statements by McDonald's global executives. McDonald's global CEO Chris Kempczinski said earlier this year that McDonald's will focus on maintaining a competitive edge and expanding its market share in the fast food industry.
The first thing to do, he said, is to react quickly to consumer trends. To do this, McDonald's must focus on affordability, which means offering a good entry price point every day; Markets that do well in this area have excellent business performance. Secondly, it is necessary to quickly raise customer awareness of the various value-added package "platforms" launched by McDonald's. Finally, make "old customers" come back more often.
Chris Kempczinski said that with insights from its members, McDonald's will strive to "deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time" to encourage those who already enjoy McDonald's to visit more McDonald's stores.
According to reports, McDonald's China currently serves more than 1.2 billion customers annually, and its digital experience covers apps, mini programs, delivery platforms and e-commerce platforms. Today, McDonald's China said that it would prefer to define "value" as "value for money", on the one hand, McDonald's continues to optimize supply chain management and operational efficiency to bring more rights and benefits to customers, and on the other hand, McDonald's also adheres to long-term philosophy to ensure that it continues to provide high-quality and delicious food. This year, McDonald's launched a systematic food image communication, through the promotion of McDonald's Farm, cage-free good chicken, and ready-to-cook for you, so that more customers can understand and perceive the quality story behind the food and the long-term efforts behind McDonald's.
It's bigger
"Our philosophy on the price side is to emphasize the 'expected' great deals every day, which is also our structural competitive advantage." Earlier this month, McDonald's China CEO Zhang Jiayin told Xiaoshidai and others that this is a big competitive advantage for the company. ”
Although McDonald's China has not given the total amount of the discount for this promotion as of press time, one thing is for sure, McDonald's China has a larger number of restaurants covered by this promotion.
Xiaoshidai once introduced that in 2017, McDonald's China transformed into an international development franchise market, and CITIC Consortium became the controlling shareholder, entering the "Golden Arches Era". Over the past seven years, McDonald's China has accelerated its localization development, with more than 6,200 restaurants, more than double that of 2017.
Last year, McDonald's China announced that it would achieve a total of 10,000 restaurants by 2028. This means that after the start of the second five-year plan in 2023, the catering giant will hit the goal of "doubling restaurants in five years". That is, about 1,000 new stores are opened every year on average, which is equivalent to "double the rate" of 500 stores per year in the first five-year plan.
McDonald's Global also increased its stake in McDonald's strategic partnerships in Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macau last year. The simplified ownership structure of McDonald's China brings more stable and sustainable long-term investment. In fact, in order to support the rapid growth target of the number of stores, McDonald's China has made frequent moves.
For example, in terms of accelerating the development of new quality productivity and deepening its long-term layout and investment in the local market, the company announced this month that it officially opened the McDonald's China Supply Chain (Hubei) Smart Industrial Park, hoping to promote industrial upgrading through technological innovation.
In addition, in terms of personnel, McDonald's China currently employs more than 200,000 employees in the Chinese market, of which more than 65% are post-95 employees. Recently, McDonald's China announced that restaurant staff will be dressed in a new seventh-generation uniform, which integrates the aesthetics and practical functionality of the new generation of employees, fully demonstrating the vitality of employees in the Golden Arches era.
In terms of food safety, McDonald's China hopes to deliver "hot and fresh" safe and delicious food to customers from farm to kitchen to table. To this end, in recent years, the company has continued to launch the "Maimai Farm" project with the core of visiting the origin and tracing the origin of ingredients, and released the "cage-free good chicken" packaging logo and the unique kitchen model of "made for you". McDonald's China said: "McDonald's is committed to providing customers with high-quality and delicious food, and at the same time, through supply chain optimization, while ensuring quality, bringing more rights and benefits to customers, so that everyone can experience delicious food and good prices anytime, anywhere." ”
In the product line, McDonald's China is also insisting on localized delicious innovation, building on the original leading position of beef, hoping to continue to consolidate the strength of chicken products. For example, the introduction of thin-skinned caramelized V wings and other beauties to provide more options for chicken lovers.
McDonald's China's first "zero-carbon restaurant" integrating photovoltaic and storage
Finally, McDonald's is also investing in sustainability. Among the more than 6,200 stores, more than 3,000 of them are LEED-certified green restaurants, which is the largest McDonald's in the world. This year, McDonald's China launched China's first "zero-carbon restaurant" in Guangzhou.