McThai Co, the local operator of the McDonald's fast food chain, will increase its investment budget by 25% to 900 million baht to expand business in Thailand next year.
Petcharat Uthaisang, chief marketing officer for McThai, shows off some of the Hello Kitty Bubbly characters available starting today.
The budget will be used to open 27 new McDonald's restaurants across the country next year, bringing the total outlets to 238. The expansion is expected to drive McDonald's sales to a double-digit growth rate in 2015, said chief marketing officer Petcharat Uthaisang.
Sales at McThai this year are expected to reach their goal, despite the first-half political turmoil and economic slowdown later in the year.
McThai is increasing its value menu choices with burger and chicken sets and ice cream to attract customers, who are cautious about spending with a weak economy. More localised marketing activities were implemented at each store to fit customer demand.
To spur sales, the company is spending 35 million baht to launch the "Hello Kitty Bubbly" collectors campaign. Hello Kitty Bubbly is available both in-store and online from Oct 30-Nov 13. After that, customers can collect each character for another six weeks at McDonald's outlets across the country.
McDonald's Singapore launched the Hello Kitty Bubbly collection three months ago and the cute cat characters became a big hit. Ms Petcharat expects similar success from this campaign, aiming for a bump in food sales of 30%.
McThai initiated the Hello Kitty campaign last year. It received a warm response from Thai fans with almost 1 million dolls sold. Regular customers visited its restaurants four times a month, up from 1.4 times during typical times.
Buoyed by this success, it brought back the Hello Kitty campaign this year to boost sales, increase customer engagement and raise the frequency of customer visits to its branches.
The company plans to open 11 McDonald's branches the rest of this year, bringing the total to 213 by year-end.
McThai also expects to open more McSnack kiosks that provide McDonald's desserts and snacks in the near future after a better than expected response from the first two kiosks in Mahachai district, Samut Sakhon, and the Tesco Lotus Bang Yai branch.
The company projects the McSnack stratagem will enable its sales to grow at a double-digit rate, a faster pace than its earlier sales outlook.