McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada has begun a six-month test of the Air Miles rewards program in Manitoba with an eye to eventually rolling it out nationally.
More than 40 McDonald’s restaurants are taking part in the test.
The basic offering for collectors is one Air Mile travel mile for every $10 spent at McDonald’s over a one-month period.
That deal will be sweetened at various times with Air Miles Mega Miles promotions and other bonus incentives.
Advertising promoting the McDonald’s/Air Miles connection was created by Palmer Jarvis Communications of Vancouver and includes television and outdoor advertising as well as point-of-sale material.
Ron Knight, assistant vice-president of corporate services for McDonald’s Western Canada Group, says the first discussions with The Loyalty Group, which administers the Air Miles program in Canada, began about four years ago, but a presentation in Vancouver about a year-and-a-half ago really got the ball rolling.
‘The feeling for our group was that we’re in a highly competitive industry, and if you can utilize a program that has obviously become an important thing to the people of Manitoba – collecting Air Miles points – it just might give us another advantage.’
The Air Miles reward program has been solidly embraced by Western Canadian consumers. While 5.6 million, or almost 50% of Canadian households, have joined the Air Miles program, 75% of Western Canadian households are collectors.
One of the main concerns about Air Miles for McDonald’s, Knight says, was the logistics of the program for a fast-food operation. Unlike other Air Miles sponsors, the company is in a high-transaction but low-dollar-value business and it was important that the program be easy to administer.
To make sure the program worked seamlessly at the restaurant level and fit with McDonald’s marketing strategy, Brad Gamble, director of marketing for McDonald’s West, worked for more than a year to set up the program with The Loyalty Group.
McDonald’s is the latest in a recent spate of big-name companies to sign on with the Air Miles program.
Last month The Great Atlantic & Pacific Company of Canada launched the program in its 180 stores in Ontario which operate under the A&P, Dominion, Super Fresh, Ultra Food & Drug and Miracle Food Mart banners, while on Oct. 1, United Parcel Service Canada began its participation in Western Canada with national rollout to follow.
