McDonald’s recently partnered with Bobble AI to leverage its unique Conversation Media Marketing solutions (CMM) to ensure greater brand recall and to position itself as the leading fast food joint across India and the go-to place to order from, apart from ensuring that the brand becomes an intrinsic part of all. The 15-day campaign managed to garner over 20+ million brand imprints in conversations, 2.1Mn+ unique eyeballs and 408K+ content shares. 

In an exclusive interaction with us, Arvind RP, Director - Marketing, Digital, Strategy & Communications at McDonald's India and Sarabjeet Singh, Executive Vice President, Conversation Media Marketing Business at Bobble AI speak on their collaboration and the industry trends, in general.

Excerpts:

Arvind RP, Director - Marketing, Digital, Strategy & Communications at McDonald's India

How do you look at the difference between Conversation Media Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing? What has worked better for McDonald's in the long run?

While both have their roles, there is a significant difference in the way a brand’s message is delivered in Conversation Media vs Traditional. In the former, users discover the content based on what they are talking about, which makes it less intrusive. 

With our recent partnership with Bobble AI for Friendship Day, we got encouraging results. We aim to invest behind this new and emerging space for growing our engagement with the Millennials.

How large food chains, like you, are upping their marketing game to reach out to the TG? What are your communication strategies for the millennials and GenZ, in particular? What kind of formats and conversations is working best in their case?

Upping the game on engagement is key as far as this TG goes. Leveraging moment marketing, for example, has worked, we strive to be a part of the conversations of millennials & GenZ so that they find our content relevant, enjoyable & engage with it. Organic content & Content integration are two other tactics that continue to show promise.

Giving credence to a recent report, quick-service restaurants (QSR) recovered the best in July 2021 with sales at 97 per cent of the pre-pandemic levels (July 2019). Can you share your thoughts on the overall growth of India’s quick-service restaurant (QSR) market?

As the second wave hit, we deployed the playbook that we had developed over 2020 to navigate the various business challenges posed by COVID. Also, by the onset of the second wave, the general customer wariness relating to consuming outside food had almost died down, recognizing the fact that outside food, especially from brands, is safe. We doubled down on our convenience channels like delivery, take-away, drive-thru and on-the-go, to grow our business.

What will be McDonald’s key focus areas in the coming months?

We will continue to enhance brand love and trust and accelerate our omnichannel strategy through our convenience channels. We have some exciting menu interventions planned in the coming months which we will leverage through the line in a big way.

Sarabjeet Singh, Executive Vice President, Conversation Media Marketing Business at Bobble AI

How is Bobble AI leveraging its organisational and tech capabilities to serve the unique needs of brands, such as McDonald's?

Bobble AI has leveraged its AI-powered platform to launch Conversation Media (CMM), a disruptive marketing solution for brands. Unlike other digital media forms, where it's not possible to do a user intent-based targeting, CMM helps brands deliver their story to the right users in the right context.  

What have been some of the recent requirements of the brands? Do you find any common thread between all?

Brands have always wanted to connect deeply with their users, on an emotional level. The medium to achieve that has evolved with time, & so have brands who now try to touch base with their audience on every stage of the purchase funnel. e.g. Personalized Fb ads alongside mass media TVCs. They have also moved to the smartphone first media forms because that's where the Indian users are spending most of their time. Hyper-contextual platforms like CMM allow brands to meet all these objectives. 

Given your recent partnership with McDonald's, do you expect a greater uptake of CMM solutions by varied brands in the coming times?

Definitely, it's a strong testimony of the effectiveness of CMM. It helps brands present themselves to their target audience in a natural & non-intrusive manner, and build a lasting recall. We have already gained significant inroads in the FMCG and F&B sectors. Moreover, we have also brought marquee names in high involvement categories like Airlines, EdTech, Automobiles, to name a few. 

Please shed more light on the efficacy of CMM solutions that offer a highly engaging, personalised experience?

If I ask you how you consume an advertisement, I'm sure you would say it's something that comes up in between other activities you are involved in. Say TVCs between a serial you are watching, a banner ad in between your content feed, and so on. CMM solutions, on the other hand, let the consumers choose to share the branded content with their friends at the right time during the conversation when that brand infusion makes total sense. This relevance & timely positioning is the secret sauce behind the high engagement and brand lift that we see across all our CMM campaigns.