Dairy Queen tests mobile appDairy Queen tests mobile app

Dairy Queen's app includes loyalty rewards, mobile payments and a geo-location marketing platform.

Dairy Queen began testing a new mobile app recently that includes loyalty rewards, mobile payments and a geo-location marketing platform.

Minneapolis-based American Dairy Queen Corp. said the “myDQ” app was launched in about 50 units in Colorado and two in Nebraska for a six-month trial.

“We think it has some competitive advantages,” said Barry Westrum, executive vice president of marketing for American Dairy Queen, adding in an interview that it employs “cloud-based technology that eliminates the need for interaction between the cashier and the consumers’ phones.”

Among the features of the app, available both in the Apple Store and at Google Play, are DQ Rewards for customers to earn, track and redeem loyalty points for free food and treats. It also provides offers and coupons personalized to each myDQ user, a mobile wallet payment option and fund tracking, and other features such as a restaurant locator, menus and nutritional information.

“We want to make [the app] very incentive-rich,” said Barry Westrum, executive vice president of marketing for American Dairy Queen.

“We’re all courting the Millennial consumer these days, and we know all consumers are really attached to their mobile phones,” Westrum said. “The ability to introduce a mobile app that would resonate with our fans and get them to have a better customer experience is really our objective,” he said.

The myDQ app offers geo-location-based coupons. “We want to make it very incentive-rich,” Westrum said. “Based on your frequency with the brand, you can earn points [toward] getting free [menu items], whether that be free Blizzards, free cones or free Five Buck Lunches.”

Customers collect virtual spoon icons within the app based on purchases.

“The bright red spoon is an icon of our brand,” Westrum said. “We know there are a lot of loyalty programs out there. We wanted ours to be top-of-mind, and simplicity was key.”

Westrum said Dairy Queen intends to evaluate the test until April and then make a decision about a wider rollout.

“We figured six months would be enough time to evaluate any bugs and take it to a larger collection of Dairy Queen stores,” he said.

The company will look at consumer and operator feedback, adoption rates, engagement data and business results.

Westrum said Dairy Queen decided to test in the Colorado-Nebraska franchise market, because those consumers tend to be early adopters.

“Denver is a great market for us,” Westrum said. “We’ve got great fans there, and they are a very technologically savvy community.”

Westrum said he thinks the biggest challenge will be guest adoption, which the company began pushing this week with social media and in-store marketing.

Upon downloading the app, test customers will receive a mobile coupon for a free Mini Blizzard Treat from a participating myDQ location.

“Consumers are being offered loyalty programs from a host of retailers,” he said. “We wanted to make ours unique and differentiated from our competitors. If a consumer only downloads three or four apps for the entire category, we want ours to be one of those.”

American Dairy Queen Corp., a division of Berkshire Hathaway, has more than 6,300 Dairy Queen locations in the United States, Canada and 25 other countries.

Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
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