McDonald’s First Foray Into AI Experiments Supported By User-Generated Content
For marketers wondering what AI can do to help market and advertise a brand, look at McDonald’s’ first foray into the technology. And in a sense, it’s consumer generated. McDonald’s provided the technology. In exchange, it promotes a new dessert and gains consumer leads.
McDonald’s stepped into artificial intelligence by creating a microsite that offers a tool where consumers can send personal messages to their grandma.
The site promotes “Grandma McFlurry” and meant to “Send grandma a sweet message.”
Grandma McFlurry, inspired by memories of grandma, is McDonald’s latest dessert that combines vanilla soft serve ice cream with butterscotch-flavored crumbles and butterscotch syrup. The taste, according to the press release, resembles Werther’s original Butterscotch hard candies.
It invites users to record video messages and translate them into a different languages, if necessary, with just a few clicks.
The company will purchase media for several television spots that will begin airing Monday. The site went live on Friday.
The user may record the message in English, but when the technology transfers the words into another language, it will look and sound like they are speaking a new language.
Users can create the video and audio recording through the camera on the phone or PC in a specific language and upload it to the platform. The technology translates it to the language requested on the list.
The technology prompts the user to use natural light, position the camera above eye level, wear neutral and solid colors, and choose a clean and uncluttered background. Then it prompts the user to align their face to the center of the circle on the screen and start recording. It gives the user 30 seconds to create a message.
The user does need to provide some personal information, such as their name and email address, which allows McDonald’s to create leads for future marketing and advertising. The prompt asks for a first and last name, along with a personal email address. The message is then translated.
An order online page serves up next with a note that reads “Grandma would want you to have one.”
It’s not clear why the messages are only geared toward grandmothers and not grandfathers, but perhaps they miss stepped considering Father’s Day falls in June.
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