For the sake of customers? Shutterstock
The pandemic has served McDonald’s well.
more technically incorrect
It suddenly has a more constrained market, ready to pay a little more for quick access to familiar food.
But soon, inflationary pressures loomed and prices rose.
This is a bit out of place for a brand that has always claimed to represent value. But what can fast food providers do to make customers feel better?
How about convincing them that nothing bad happened? How do you find an interesting way for them to get the kind of deal they got before so much of the world went askew?
That’s what the Swedish branch of McDonald’s has done, with a little help from technology.
A campaign called “Deals Stuck in Time” asked customers to search Google Street View to find real McDonald’s billboards from a time in the past — such as 2009.
Yes, McDonald’s actually went into Street View and used a little tech know-how to alter a couple of existing billboards to turn back time and go back to the good old days.
All customers have to do is figure out what year the deal happened in, then visit the Deals Stuck in Time website and claim their bargain.
Staffan Ekstam, marketing director of McDonald’s Sweden, puts it this way: “We thought it would be a good and interesting idea to bring back the old McDonald’s offer and allow for ‘time travel’, especially when price discussions compare More times than ever. We hope people will take this opportunity to go back and enjoy McDonald’s favorites, just like it was 2009.”
2009? I remember that. The year Bitcoin was born, the year Circuit City shut down all its good institutions, and the year Grindr launched.
look? Happier, more optimistic times.
Oh, and of course the McDonald’s campaign is just marketing. It’s just a limited time promotion.
But it’s heartening when a major brand expresses the tiniest awareness that its customers might be suffering a little bit.
Plus, when a brand decides to be a little smarter and use technology in a simple and fun way, people can’t help but express a little admiration.
I wonder how this would work in the US, some customers complained, for example, that they were charged $16 for their combo meals.
Many people would surely assume that 2009 must have been a lighter, saner time to live in, even if they don’t quite remember it.
