This is the part I just talk.....
The McDonald's Monopoly promotion ended last year in December, I had fun participating as a consumer, having stayed away from junk food as much as possible for the few months prior to that, but admittedly succu
mbed to the Monopoly promotion and contributed to the booming sales that McDonald's enjoyed during the duration of the promotion. Blame it on the part of me that likes feeling lucky. See, humans are such honeybees when it comes to games of chance, if we weren't, lucky draws would have failed, you would not spend another $20 on something just to qualify for a chance to win that Chevrolet prize during Christmas shopping at malls, and you will see Singapore Pools having trouble continuing their support of sports in Singapore and other worthy causes.
Introduction
For the uninitiated, the campaign involved elements of Monopoly being heavily infused into the typical McDonald's experience, from gameboard playmats, monopoly themed uniforms for the staff and highly visible marketing collateral dangling overhead and plenty of TV air time to boot, the grand prize of S$50,000 and other attractive electronic and holiday prizes, backed up by hundreds of thousands of free food items from McDonald's menu, it definitely got the HOOK part of the campaign right. Even I'm hooked to give it a try.
What Went Wrong
It may have been a mistake restricted to this particular branch, I won't know for sure since the golden arches do not pay me to visit every branch as a mystery shopper ( a job which would probably require high intensity running from branch to branch in order to work off some of the food one has to consume as a McDonald's mystery shopper).
1) Misinformed front line staff in the first incident tells my friend that in order to claim the instant win Apple Pie, he had to purchase another item. My friend ended up buying a sundae. Not a big deal since it really is just a less than $2 purchase. No big deal to the customer financially and there is definitely no sinister profit maximizing conspiracy behind the request.
Plain and simple, the front line staff failed to be adequately educated about the mechanisms of the game and mistakenly introduces a rule of her own (for reasons that cannot be reasonably fathomed as the terms and conditions in the Terms and Conditions clearly rubbishes her rule.)
If I may make an observation, my gut feel is that this customer walked away with an unpleasant experience and inexplicably felt a little cheated and a little more distrusting of the golden arches brand because the prize he had won didn't seem much of a prize if he had to pay a price for it.
2) What's the point of a term, if you do not really intend to enforce it? A term would definitely have been thought out and reasoned before warranting inclusion in the official terms and conditions governing the conduct of the event. In the second incident, one person tried to claim 4 instant win coupons on behalf of four individuals (typical lazy people right? Why displace four people from their comfortable seats when one is enough?) but was told that one person can only claim one item.
Troublesome since we have to walk there and there's a long queue (cue more lazy jabs from readers and perhaps some speculation of our sizes, but queuing up is no fun but the queue reflects the success of the campaign and perhaps contributed to the underpaid frontline staff more irritable). We tried again to see if it was policy for one claim a person by having one person hand over the coupons, sure enough we were told of the policy. No problem, we indicated to the presence of three people to three coupons. She looked irritated and then said, "You all have to claim one at a time" and refused to take all three coupons at the same time and we had to hand them over ONE by ONE. I'm sure you're like me, thinking, "Is there a difference?" The answer is no. She keyed everything into the same order in a slightly begrudging manner. Now I feel so cheap claiming my prize.
I definitely do not fault the front line staff for making such weird requests and can empathize with the fact that 1) she probably have had lots of requests like these and have repeated the same thing a thousand times over 2) she has no choice as she was acting under direct instruction of her supervisor / manager who is of course adhering to the terms and conditions spelt out by the management.
Only one food prize can be redeemed per person per visit (where a visit shall mean a consecutive 4 hour period
Here's where Brand Myopia struck as the management failed to see these points when introducing that particular term.
1) People who are able to claim instant win prizes are most likely loyal customers of McDonald's or have participated actively in the campaign. These are the same people who contribute to the improved sales during this promotion period, having won something is akin to feeling rewarded and it should be a happy thing.
2) From the consumers perspective, if you are offering these food items as prizes and incentives, you ought to be sincere about giving out all the prizes that you have promised to give. By imposing restrictions just does not convey that. Are your staff really going to tell your customers to come back 4 hours later and claim an item again? I think not.
3) Stopping short of requesting for an I/C verification, keying that information into a centralized database upon every instant win claim, there is no way you can ensure that the term is met. Why try to enforce the term when you know customers are just going to queue again (and not being too happy about doing so) at a different counter at the same outlet and definitely not after 4 hours to claim what they intend to claim. Why make it so difficult for the customer if all he or she feels like at the moment is to have a nice snack of fries and apple pie before getting a meal?
4) Why create unpleasant interactions between your staff and customers? As mentioned above, dining at and being a customer of McDonald's ought to be a pleasant experience, yet by creating opportunities as experienced personally where unpleasant interactions arise between consumers and staff due to such restrictions where the customer's demand is not met and left greatly inconvenienced, don't you think that the merits of the campaign has been tainted in the minds of consumers? If I am going through so much trouble just to claim an easy instant win prize, it unwittingly causes one to wonder about the sincerity of the campaign and how many more hoops and hassle would one need to go through before claiming a major prize (a concern that you may say is uncalled for, but fact of the matter is, these things leave an impression on the consumer).
5) Would having the term result in a happy, satisfied customer who would continue supporting the campaign? Or not? I would not be surprised that the rigid application of the above term leaves a deeper impression compared to the rewards or the joy of participating in the campaign. While it would not be serious enough to result in a total boycott of the brand, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to a certain extent.
2) From the consumers perspective, if you are offering these food items as prizes and incentives, you ought to be sincere about giving out all the prizes that you have promised to give. By imposing restrictions just does not convey that. Are your staff really going to tell your customers to come back 4 hours later and claim an item again? I think not.
3) Stopping short of requesting for an I/C verification, keying that information into a centralized database upon every instant win claim, there is no way you can ensure that the term is met. Why try to enforce the term when you know customers are just going to queue again (and not being too happy about doing so) at a different counter at the same outlet and definitely not after 4 hours to claim what they intend to claim. Why make it so difficult for the customer if all he or she feels like at the moment is to have a nice snack of fries and apple pie before getting a meal?
4) Why create unpleasant interactions between your staff and customers? As mentioned above, dining at and being a customer of McDonald's ought to be a pleasant experience, yet by creating opportunities as experienced personally where unpleasant interactions arise between consumers and staff due to such restrictions where the customer's demand is not met and left greatly inconvenienced, don't you think that the merits of the campaign has been tainted in the minds of consumers? If I am going through so much trouble just to claim an easy instant win prize, it unwittingly causes one to wonder about the sincerity of the campaign and how many more hoops and hassle would one need to go through before claiming a major prize (a concern that you may say is uncalled for, but fact of the matter is, these things leave an impression on the consumer).
5) Would having the term result in a happy, satisfied customer who would continue supporting the campaign? Or not? I would not be surprised that the rigid application of the above term leaves a deeper impression compared to the rewards or the joy of participating in the campaign. While it would not be serious enough to result in a total boycott of the brand, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to a certain extent.
Conclusion
The campaign is certainly one to be commended, with a highly visible amount of intent that can be perceived by the consumers in terms of providing consumers the chance to be rewarded for their purchase and participation. Not an original campaign as other versions have taken place in UK and US. It was on the whole well executed, but while incidents like the above do not jeopardize the campaign or dramatically diminish the brand value and good will of the campaign, it definitely leaves a not too nice impression on affected customers and as brand and marketing managers, incidents and oversights like these ought to be taken into account during the post campaign analysis.
McDonald's responded to my feedback email to them via phone call, through a gentleman by the name of Raymond. We spoke on the phone and he was in agreement that there were points of failure in the execution and communication with the front line staff despite having called in all the branch managers in for the briefing. He apologized verbally for the unpleasant experience and acknowledged that more could be done and he has conveyed the feedback to the marketing manager. I do hope that such insights do not get lost in communication as it would be a real pity to have a wonderful campaign marred by poor policy and communication.
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