How McDelivery drove engagement and shifted brand perception

McDonald’s first opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955. The company’s goal has always been to offer consistently prepared, quality food that tasted the same in every location, every time. In 1967, the first McDonald’s restaurant outside the US opened its doors in Richmond, British Columbia. Fast-forward to today, and close to 3 million guests visit 1,400 restaurants across Canada every day.

McDelivery is McDonald’s food delivery service that brings customers’ favorite menu items directly to their front door. McDelivery launched in Canada in 2017 and quickly became a top business priority for McDonald’s when restaurants had to close to indoor dining in 2020.

Creating an insights-driven campaign

Knowing that families were spending more time at home together than ever before, McDonald’s Canada and media agency OMD reflected on some of the positive aspects of this newfound “togetherness." For many, that meant more time spent around the dinner table, which had become the classroom, office, games room, and meal space.

ComScore data showed that McDonald’s mobile app users were 198% more likely than the average Canadian to use the Amazon mobile app and 125% more likely to shop on Amazon.ca. These insights indicated that while McDonald’s food is not sold on Amazon.ca, McDonald’s customers were active and engaged with Amazon throughout the day.

The brand, creative, and media teams worked together with Amazon Ads to develop “McDelivery and a Movie," creating custom McDelivery “hubs” on Amazon.ca and FireTV. The hubs featured a curated list of movies that customers could watch on family movie night, as well as a shoppable carousel of movie night accessories like popcorn bowls and pajamas. Traffic-driving display banners and online video creative were developed specifically for this campaign and ran across Amazon.ca, IMDb, Twitch, and Thursday Night Football.

"Through our collaboration with Amazon Ads, we can confidently say we were able to work alongside cultural trends in real time to deliver the best possible campaign for our customers."

– Michelle Mcilmoyle, Senior National Marketing Manager, McDonald’s Canada

The engagement with McDelivery ads and traffic to McDelivery landing pages exceeded campaign expectations. User dwell time on the McDelivery campaign hubs was nearly 250% above Amazon standard benchmarks, and three-quarters of all clicks within the Amazon.ca McDelivery hub were on the “Get McDelivery” button. In addition to clicks and orders, the campaign helped to shift perceptions of the McDonald’s brand as a delivery leader.

"This campaign was a great proof point for McDonald’s. For a brand that doesn’t sell on Amazon, we were able to achieve breakthrough results using some of Amazon Ads’s offerings to reach the right customers, with the right message, at the right time."
– Simon Ross, Group Director of Innovation, OMD

Watch the video below to learn more about the McDelivery campaign and how McDonald’s leveraged the Amazon DSP, Twitch, IMDb, and FireTV to reach and engage customers in 2020.

1 https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca/about-us/our-history.html
2 ComScore Media Metrix, June 2020, Cross-Visiting Report
3 Amazon internal data, 2020