McDonald’s Uses Digital To Drive Foot Traffic

McDonald’s is going national with a mobile ordering and payment app, offering music and video downloads, and expanding online loyalty programs in an effort to increase sales at U.S. restaurants, according to Adweek.

The key piece of the expanded digital strategy is McDonald’s coupon app, known as McD. The iPhone and Android app lets users in select locations access special deals while ordering in store. The catch: Each electronic coupon is valid for only two minutes and must be shown to a cashier to be redeemed.

Groundwork for the coupon app was laid in 2013, when McDonald’s partnered with Front Flip to deliver free food vouchers and other incentives to individuals’ smartphones in more than 600 U.S. locations.

The app is expected to roll out more broadly with the hiring of McDonald’s first U.S. VP of digital, Julia Vander Ploeg, who joined the fast-food giant this month from Ticketmaster. The chain is also searching for a product director for loyalty.

The chain has also just launched a year-and-a-half-long rebranding that’s being launched because of disappointing revenue growth, especially among consumers younger than 35, and image problems that include the perception that eating fast-food burgers is unhealthy and that McDonald’s underpays its hourly workers.