McDonald's Touts Arch Cards

Oak Brook, IL -- After the successful launch of its Arch Card last year, McDonald's Corp. gave the gift cards some extra sparkle for the holiday season with a promotion designed to entice customers to purchase the cards from displays available at all points of sale in its restaurants.The promotion was a natural progression from the marketing events surrounding the card's launch, according to Shannelle Armstrong, manager of U.S. communications, who says that during that time, the focus was on more out-of-restaurant, informative promotional tactics. "We had already seeded the conversation with the consumer about what we were providing to them with the cards. Now this promotion was about where they could purchase them," she says.Limited-edition Arch Cards with holiday designs -- including Ronald McDonald, a snowflake, a snow globe and a wrapped gift -- were created for the promotion, which was carried at participating U.S. McDonald's restaurants and ran from Nov. 28 until Dec. 25, 2006. Arch Cards will continue to be available year-round, displayed in clear countertop units created for the promotion, which can showcase new designs as they continue to debut throughout the year.The holiday program's performance will be measured nationally and locally by monitoring total sales of the cards, as well as activations and reloads. McDonald's will not be releasing any numbers related to the holiday promotion, but in December 2005 alone, more than $40 million worth of cards were sold.Other P-O-P elements produced for the promotion, including banners, window posters, register toppers, menu boards and drive-through billboards, were displayed both inside and outside the restaurants. Each piece had a blue background design with an image of the snowflake Arch Card, with some signage featuring the tagline, "feeling gifty?"Some included short rhymes suggesting possible gift recipients, such as "teacher. brother. significant other" and "babysitter. baker. front lawn raker."The card displays were manufactured of a clear material designed to highlight the cards themselves and to keep setup and updating simple. The displays require no assembly and hold 100 cards per unit, plus gift card envelopes.The in-store materials also tied into a TV campaign for the cards that ran throughout the holidays and carried the same theme and taglines. "We have a consistency when we send a message to the consumer. What you saw communicated in our television advertising, you saw that actual message come to life in the restaurant," Armstrong says.

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