Take a lesson from the Virtual Happy Meal

Two days ago, McDonald’s Sweden announced that it is trialling a Happy Meal box that can be turned into a virtual reality headset. Obviously influenced by the Google Cardboard project, the adaption is an exciting early example of how a relatively recent innovation is starting to adapt to suit commercial purposes. It’s also f*cking scary, and responses around the combination of junk food with video games, lack of exercise, and a lack of social interaction for kids who use it are thoughts that all come to mind after a brief reflection on the implications of this innovation. Social commentary has already highlighted some good points:

“Kids need more time outdoors after a home cooked meal and less time in front of a screen eating out of a box.” — Todd on LinkedIn

“… the idea is compelling but fairly impractical.” — Tasha on LinkedIn

So what would Macca’s be thinking of comments like these? They’d probably be loving it! Excuse the pun… Whilst it’s easy to label this as a “novel” idea and one that will be forgotten by anyone not in Sweden by the end of the week, this hints at a wider strategy by McDonald’s globally that we can learn a valuable marketing lesson from.

Brand equity is about maintaining relevance

McDonald’s were rated as the 9th most valuable brand in 2015 by Interbrand, outperformed in their category only by Coca-Cola. They’re still stronger than Disney and Facebook, and sit in the tech-heavy top ten with brands such as Apple, IBM, Samsung, Google, and Microsoft. Whilst these tech giants are reinventing the way we communicate and work, McDonald’s are still flipping burgers! How are they still up there!?

One of the reasons is brand equity, which is shorthand for the value of a brand within a customer or potential customer’s mind. Brand equity is shaped by more than the products and services of a company, and intelligent CMOs like the ones at McDonald’s have strategic plans to increase their brand equity much like a CFO might have strategic plans to increase profit. Like anything in business, it’s all about taking calculated risks, and that’s exactly what our mates in Sweden are doing right now.

What Macca’s are actually doing is getting real-world feedback about a potential new direction for a long-standing tradition. Nostalgia aside, would it really be that bad if the playground was replaced by VR? Arguments along the lines of the need for social interaction and physical play can easily be countered by modern augmented reality iterations. In fact, Danish playground maker Kompan have had a “Smart Playground” in the market for years now; it’s not so hard to imagine kids strapping on a Happy Meal box and heading to the “playground” to socially interact in a virtual environment.

All McDonald’s is doing is setting out to prove that incorporating virtual reality into the overall family restaurant experience is a viable concept. There are of course going to be problems, but since when was only investing in perfect concepts a thing? As marketers, we need to be constantly pushing the fold with new creative, new campaigns, new products, new markets, and new ways of engaging with our market. McDonald’s are doing exactly this by attempting to reinvent their restaurants’ servicescape, and there’s a key takeaway (another unintended pun!) from it:

Key takeaway, or “but how do I do it for my company?”

First, set a long-term strategic objective. Make sure it’s easily measured, for example, “I want BrandX be the number one brand association when it comes to camera lenses” is a good long-term goal.

Second, recognise that you’ve got a long way to go. That’s a key point, and something you may need to remind your colleagues, employees, and bosses about from time to time. The best way to show progress is to incorporate milestones into your projects, much like what Macca’s could be doing with the VR headset: the current project could be part of a wider milestone such as “we will to digitise our playground by 2025” as a part of their brand equity strategy. Milestones are important in showing progress and opening you up to new ways of pivoting your marketing strategy (after all, why should your strategy be perfect from day one?).

Third, just do it. It’s beautifully simple at a high level, but it needs to be that way because once you get down into the muck you’re going to find a whole lot of complexities that need to be solved in order to make progress. If the human brain network is the most complex system in the known universe, and a company is the result of a collective of human brains; then could it be argued that a company’s collective human network is the most complex system in the known universe? Maybe not, but my point remains: It’s easier to start than it is to finish, which is why having a solid strategy in place is going to help you align your team(s) and streamline your workflow.

Finally, if you don’t have the time, the resources, or the confidence to embark on a growth project alone then you can contact Tiny! Based in Melbourne, Australia and working with companies worldwide, we specialise in growing your markets, growing your products, and growing your brands.

To discuss growing your business, head www.withtiny.com