This week, McDonald's named its first Chief Digital Officer. An Amazon and Yahoo! alum, Atif Rafiq will focus on all-things-digital in his new role and will report to McDonald's Chief Brand Officer. According to AdAge.com, Rafiq will "lead a more coordinated and comprehensive digital strategy for [McDonald's]," which will include a big focus on the company's mobile strategy; apparently mobile ordering and payments are in test-mode.The fact that McDonald's is hiring a "C" level employee to head-up its digital strategy speaks volumes to the importance of digital marketing to a brand.
It is interesting that McDonald's created a whole new role dedicated solely to digital marketing. We hear about the importance of an "integrated marketing strategy" which should include digital, and while hiring an expert to head up the digital aspect of a brand's marketing strategy, creating a big-time role for this hopefully doesn't imply that digital will be silo-ed from the rest of McDonald's marketing strategy. Either way, it is a huge step for the restaurant industry, which, according to AdAge.com, has been "slow to embrace [digital]." AdAge tips its hat to Domino's which created the "pizza tracker" that let's consumers see exactly what stage in the process their order is in. As someone who grew up in suburbia where Friday nights included a babysitter, Domino's and TGIF television, I AM A HUGE FAN.
Looking forward to seeing how McDonald's digital strategy evolves as Atif builds out his role.
Source: AdAge.com
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