Long before social media was even a gleam in the eyes of restaurant marketers everywhere, McDonald’s was contributing to the development of location-based social media with the seemingly random rollouts of its cultish McRib sandwich.


Whenever the elusive McRib popped up in markets across the country, good old-fashioned analog word-of-mouth was used to spread the news among hardcore fans. Over time, though, fans developed “McRib locator” websites to track where the limited-time offer would spread. 


Today, location-based platforms like Foursquare, SCVNGR and others have devotees digitally “checking in” to McDonald’s units across the country for the McRib and other specialty items, said Rick Wion, the chain’s director of social media.


Over time, the use of location-based services, or LBS, has gained both in popularity and sophistication throughout the restaurant industry.


This year, McDonald’s is using Facebook and Google Maps to conduct a nationwide scavenger hunt in its “Quest for the Golden McRib” promotion at its 14,000 U.S. units.


“We know that each year, the McRib fans will flock back to the restaurants, but we’re also looking for ways in which we can use that buzz to bring in new customers,” Wion said. “We know the product drives buzz; can the buzz itself be a resource to drive more traffic?”


The answer likely will be “yes,” if projections of growth for LBS apps hold true.


Marketers surveyed in a recent study by the Association of National Advertisers expect the use of location-based social media to grow in 2012. According to the survey, 27 percent of marketers currently use platforms like Foursquare, SCVNGR and Gowalla, and 32 percent said they would use such applications next year.


The study also tabulated marketers’ ratings for the effectiveness of certain advertising platforms, and both social networks and mobile platforms — which essentially come together to form location-based applications like Foursquare — have better perceptions than just two years ago. Social media’s effectiveness rating rose from 17 percent of marketers perceiving the tool favorably in 2009 to 28 percent in 2011. Mobile’s rating has risen steadily, from 14 percent in 2007 to 22 percent in 2009, and up again to 25 percent in 2011.


The hunt is on


Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald’s, rather than use an LBS app like Foursquare, created the “Quest for the Golden McRib” game on Facebook. Players start their journey by first picking a McDonald’s location on an integrated Google Maps page.


“We wanted to try and experiment,” Wion said. “We’ve done some regional tests with LBS apps in the past, but since this was a national promotion, we thought, ‘Let’s do something different.’”


Leveraging Google Maps was a way for McDonald’s to highlight interesting locations of the chain, such as the Rock N Roll McDonald’s in downtown Chicago, he said.


“One of the other outcomes we’re hoping to see is getting people used to searching for us on a map,” Wion added. “It puts us in a higher selection set, where people think: ‘I’m hungry. What’s nearby? Oh, good, there’s a McDonald’s.’”


Other approaches


A similar level of control is available to restaurant brands on SCVNGR, an LBS app in which venues can create several custom tasks or challenges for guests to do within their restaurants to earn points toward some kind of reward.


Minneapolis-based Buffalo Wild Wings is running its second SCVNGR promotion during this college football season at its 800 locations in North America.


“SCVNGR stood out because we were really able to customize our challenges around the promotion we’re doing at the time,” said Jeremy Burke, marketing manager for Buffalo Wild Wings. “We also can reward them right on the spot for engaging with us on their mobile devices, like by giving them a free [soda] or free wings once they get enough points.”


Buffalo Wild Wings’ first promotion with SCVNGR last winter during basketball season, “Home Court Advantage,” was recognized with Promo Magazine’s PRO Award for Best Mobile Marketing. The basketball-related challenges rewarded players with discounts, free food and an entry for the grand-prize sweepstakes: a trip to the NBA Finals with Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen.


A key change from the first SCVNGR promotion was adding more weekly prizes to keep fans coming back to complete more tasks, like taking pictures of themselves in the restaurants.


“Looking at the data and how guests interacted on our microsite, we knew more guests came on mobile devices, so now the microsite is more mobile-friendly and it’s scalable,” Burke said. “To build awareness week-to-week, we’re doing weekly prizes to build more scale toward the end. Guests get a quicker payoff now.”


More to check out


While McDonald’s put its LBS promotion behind a single limited-time offer, Buffalo Wild Wings said the tactic was better aimed at advertising the customer experience at its restaurants. However, Burke said such platforms end up promoting both brand equities and specific products, no matter how a restaurant uses them.


“With wings, beer and wall-to-wall sports, we think the experience is the driving force for our guests to come in, and we want to talk about that as much as we can,” Burke said. “In the social-media technology and within those SCVNGR challenges, we’re able to talk about our products, but we’re not about LTOs or discounting.”


Joe Sorge, chief executive of Milwaukee-based Hospitality Democracy, a multiconcept operator, said changes in the latest version of Foursquare make the app more fun for the guest and easier to manage for restaurateurs, especially those running several locations and brands.


“They’ve made it much easier to update specials on the fly,” said Sorge, who has built a loyal following for his restaurants AJ Bombers, Water Buffalo, Swig and Zaffiro’s Pizza by engaging his customers on Twitter and Foursquare and teaching them how to use the platforms.


Foursquare’s dashboard now aggregates check-in data from all locations a restaurateur owns into an e-mail report for easier number crunching, Sorge said. He added that the push-button control of specials makes it easier to deploy them faster and quickly change them if they need tweaking.


“Before, it was a step-by-step process, and the app didn’t remember anything you’d done before,” Sorge said. “Now, you can reactivate a stored special or campaign. So, we know what’s worked in the past, and now we can push it out again or at a new location.”


Contact Mark Brandau at mark.brandau@penton.com.
Follow him on Twitter at @Mark_from_NRN.