During a discussion of a case study with NinthDecimal and OMD, the Place Conference audience heard about how McDonald’s was able to build awareness and drive loyalists into stores to play Monopoly. Leveraging a spectrum of location and behavioral data, McDonald’s identified high-value audience segments and successfully got them to return to the store.

As to the specifics of the campaign, OMD and NinthDecimal delivered a number of mobile display ads, isolating a control audience and those exposed to the ads. The campaign data was sourced from apps using location data, apps that have persistent data as well as the use of some beacon tech.

The most compelling finding was that demographic based efforts didn’t result in lift, but offline insights did. They were able to identify an audience subset defined as “foodies” and found that these consumers had the propensity to visit McDonald’s during business travel.

OMD’s Erin Kienast, provided the agency perspective, saying that in isolation, location isn’t important. However, she finds location valuable when the data can be used to identify a consumer set or audience, based on behavioral and contextual signals.

One interesting note on McDonald’s business was that 70% of transactions are cash. Without credit card transaction data, McDonald’s is working with OMD to build a more comprehensive view of consumers. In fact, OMD is working with the company on a “360 Consumer” initiative to better understand the behaviors of customers more broadly.

The most succinct takeaway from the presentation was that companies “shouldn’t have a location strategy, but should have an audience strategy.”