MYIQ ///// Mobile Youth IQ

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What Is It?
McDonald’s recently launched, in select cities, mobilestr33t, a service where customers can download coupons as well as ringtones and wallpapers to their mobile phones.

How to Get It?
To use Mobilestr33t you go to your mobile phone’s web browser and type in http://www.mobilestr33t.com/. It takes you to the mobile site where you can download wallpapers and ringtones. To download a wallpaper called Brown Eyes, for example, you click on “resize image” and then provide more information about your phone.

From the View of MYIQ
MYIQ panelists liked the idea of being able to get coupons on their phone from brands they care about. Those who were not fans of McDonald’s didn’t care for the fact they were coming from a fast food restaurant. However, heavy McDonald’s users were very enthusiastic—as with this MYIQ panelist:

“YES i would because im always eating lunch out and coupons are convenient”

MYIQ panelists would love to see this type of program for other brands: clothing retailers, telecommunication companies, and coffee shops like Starbucks were suggested.

“it's always nice to have a little suggestion of a place to go, especially if they're going to make it cheaper for me to go there”

The idea of McDonald’s for mobiles got us to thinking of other possibilities for their service. So we asked our panel about other ways in which they could use their mobile phones with restaurants. Panelists were intrigued by the ideas of using text to locate nearby places to eat, and accessing menus. We also suggested using their phones to actually order their food, which received a positive response from many MYIQ teens.

“The faster the better when you wait at a drive thru and ordering by text earlier would definitely make the food come quicker,” agreed a panelist.

Other teens were open to the idea of paying for food with their phones.

“Saves time and besides, my dad pays the phone bill, so I’ll be passing on the charge to him,” texted a panel member.

While these ideas were fun to think about, in reality the current McDonald’s mobile service had some practical issues as far as our panelists were concerned. Many had difficulty with downloading, and mentioned they were getting error messages, which was frustrating.

Learning
Frequent shoppers of any retail outlet would likely welcome mobile offers. That said, as with any program, testing and optimizing the user interface will always enhance the consumer reaction.