Following the COVID-19 pandemic, McDonald's in Indonesia was facing a crisis, with many customers still apprehensive to eat in restaurants. Traditional promotions were proving unsuccessful and so the agency was tasked with finding an innovative way to increase foot traffic back into McDonald's outlets.

Introducing Wi-Fries, a unique Wi-Fi speed test built into the McDonald’s app that rewards people experiencing slow Wi-Fi at home with French Fries (and fast Wi-Fi) in-store!

Wi-Fries tests the Wi-Fi speed at home, and compares it with the Wi-Fi speed at McDonald’s. The bigger the difference in speed, the bigger the discount.

During the pandemic and subsequent loosening of social restrictions, there was an estimated +300% of young people working from home.

With Indonesia being notorious for slow internet speeds, there had been an increase of 38% in search queries for ‘slow internet’ since the start of the pandemic, with many taking to social media to voice their grievances.

McDonald’s restaurants offer much faster internet speeds than the average home networks in Indonesia. What if we could resolve their tension and get them to use McDonald’s outlets as their remote work hotspot… Knowing that, once in store, they’ll find the food too hard to resist.

The Strategy – GET young remote workers WHO are apprehensive of leaving the house, but are going crazy with the bad internet speed at home TO come and work/play/scroll at McDonald’s BY showing that McDonald’s Wi-Fi is the fastest internet hotspot in town.

Wi-Fries successfully leveraged the open API of a popular internet speed test and integrated it into the existing McDonald’s app.

Depending on the difference in home internet speed vs that of McDonald’s, users received a range of discounts that could be redeemed in-store through the use of a QR code, nationwide, at all 269 of McDonald’s restaurants.

The one-month campaign strategically employed influencer marketing to amplify reach and create awareness.

In just one month, the McDonald's Wi-Fries campaign reached an astonishing 7 million app users, garnering a 60% increase in overall app traffic with 45% of vouchers claimed, and successfully reminding Indonesia's youngsters where the hotspot for fast food and fast Wi-Fi truly is.