Who Moved My Coffee?

 

McDonald’s Free Coffee on My Dash (if I had a car)

Let’s be frank.  McDonald’s is not my first choice for coffee.  Coffee is the only legit addiction that won’t lead to a failed random drug test at work and let’s face it – often the best part of a weekday.

Think about it, thanks to the Starbuckization of our great nation, coffee is truly the last socially acceptable work break.  Can’t drink like the Mad Men of old.  Can’t smoke – even at RJR Tobacco’s headquarters anymore.

Coffee is also the only acceptable reason you could call your boss Frankie when he goes by Frank at 8 am….as in, what-happens-when-I-haven’t-had-coffee yet.

McDonald’s had a social contest called #SipandTell where they encouraged consumers to – well, you get it (you wouldn’t be my dear readers if not for your above average IQ….), tell their but-I-haven’t-had-my-coffee-yet stories in exchange for free coffee.

The effort drew the expected UGC (user generated content) and engagement on Twitter: mismatched socks, left my car keys in the fridge – type stuff.

Meh.

Like most social media contests today, it is only interesting to two people:

1) The winner of the contest
2) The marketing folks behind the contest

Anyway – bashing yet another meh social contest was actually not the reason for this post.  All digressions aside, I thought the execution of the latest free coffee effort by McDonalds in mid September was really clever.  Here’s why:

1) McDonald’s chose a trending channel.  Streaming music.  In this case, iRadio.

What’s so great about that?  I thought radio was dead?

Well dear reader, you’d be mistaken.  We don’t download and buy songs from iTunes anymore (…so 2009…).  We are shifting to streaming subscription services (a la Spotify, Pandora).  We use apps.  Free apps with advertising.  iTunes Radio is a native app that plays decent enough music with ads in tolerable frequency.  It looks like this, and if you haven’t tried it, I suggest you do (and stop paying $1.99/song – forever):

iTunes iRadio Button on iPhone

 

 

 

 

 

Back to McDonald’s.  Running their free coffee promo ads on this channel was very smart.  As we all know, it is much easier to ride a wave than swim against it.  For the marketers out there, it means higher ROI than normal, i.e. better bang for buck.

2.) McDonald’s used a clever hook.  They talked about breaking habits. Over a two week period, McDonald’s challenged consumers to break their coffee habit and come to McDonald’s for a free coffee.

Now hold on a second there, didn’t you say it is easier to ride a wave than swim against it?

Dear readers, allow me to explain.  McDonald’s is facing a hard truth about their coffee.  They know, and are basically taking a hard fact head on – McDonald’s isn’t our first choice for coffee.  That’s strong.  And hard to do.  Have you ever heard anyone brag about NOT being #1?

Thought so.

McDonald’s USA Perks Up The Nation With Free Coffee

So the McDonald’s free coffee radio ad spoke to the fact it takes 21 days to break a habit and said that for 14 days McDonald’s is giving away free coffee each morning.  Not a bad hook.  The frequency was enough that I got it.

Not to mention, if you dangle something “Free” in front of me, I drop what I’m doing and run like I’m running from the cops when I was 18, drinking Milwaukee’s Best in my high school football field on a school night, (…am I really the only one)???

Anyway – McDonald’s had a tough Q3, so it’s TBD whether they made a good bet with their second two-week free coffee-a-thon this September.  Some of the effort depends on how much breakfast sales they captured in addition to coffee share.

When you add the word “free,”  at least for me, perhaps coffee is not such a sacred ritual after all.

Perhaps I’m just a cheap bastard, a sucker for free stuff.

Fine.  I can live with that (I’ve been called much worse).

Just don’t touch my coffee.