McDonald's Indonesia turned slow home Wi-Fi into a bigger fries discount

The pandemic taught a generation of Indonesian youngsters to order delivery, leaving McDonald's restaurants unusually empty. Indonesia also has some of the slowest home internet in the region, a nightly frustration for the same digital-first customers. McDonald's stores happened to offer fast, free Wi-Fi — a genuine advantage, but one a standard ad campaign could only claim, not prove.

The usual lever for 'get people back in the building' is a discount on food, but a discount is undifferentiated: everyone gets the same small reason to leave the house, and it competes on price you cannot win against delivery apps. McDonald's needed a reason to visit that was personal, measurable and tied to something it genuinely did better.

McDonald's embedded a speed test in its Indonesian app. You ran it at home; it compared your home Wi-Fi to the Wi-Fi speed at McDonald's stores; the bigger the gap, the larger your discount on fries, delivered as a QR code redeemable in the restaurant. Worst-connected customers were paid the most to come sit in a store with faster Wi-Fi than their house.

Embedded a speed test in the app comparing home to store Wi-Fi, scaling the fries discount to the gap, so the worst-connected were paid most to come sit in faster Wi-Fi.

The speed test lets each user measure their own deficit, making the brand's advantage self-evident.

The reward scales with the gap, so the worst-connected get the biggest incentive to visit.

The QR redemption in the app drives downloads and gets customers physically into stores.

The in-store Wi-Fi is proven by the test, not just claimed by an ad.

When a shared local weakness keeps customers away, measure it and scale your reward to the deficit, turning the worst-off into your most motivated visitors.

The agency, VML, reports 6.8 million app users and a 60% rise in app usage; ADFEST's 2024 jury awarded the campaign the Direct Grande. The mechanic was a short promotion, not a durable product, and no independent audit of the results exists — the impact figures rest on the agency's own claim.