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How McDonald’s served up a 2.5x higher conversion rate, turned flight arrivals into visits

Illustration of a red paper airplane filled with French fries, flying upwards.

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International airports offer brands great opportunities to reach consumers through contextual and personalised messaging. Recognising this opportunity, McDonald’s Germany partnered with OMD Germany and The Trade Desk to turn real-time flight data into a new kind of contextual media strategy, connecting travellers with culturally relevant messaging the moment they land. 

Airports naturally combine context with timing, and audience scale, allowing marketers to engage travellers when their recent journeys make messaging more impactful. This approach enables timely, measurable advertising that is primed to resonate with travellers. 

Why airport arrivals create powerful marketing moments 

As part of its “Mecces um die Welt” (McDonald’s Around the World) promotion, McDonald’s Germany introduced 22 food menu items inspired by flavours from 17 countries. The campaign tapped into the emotional connection travellers have to food by bringing fresh international tastes to restaurants throughout Germany. 

Airports offered a natural environment to engage this audience. Travellers arriving from abroad are transitioning from travel to daily routines, making messaging tied to their recent journeys especially relevant. 

For McDonald’s Germany, the challenge was to deliver that emotional relevance at scale while maintaining precise targeting. While out-of-home placements are not always designed to adapt to real-world events, the global fast-food chain and its agency partner, OMD Germany, saw an opportunity to leverage digital out-of-home (DOOH) in a signal-rich environment to sharpen the campaign’s contextual precision. 

Turning flight data into contextual advertising 

The team developed a programmatic DOOH solution that automatically linked real-time flight data. 

Live flight arrival information — including the country of origin, gate assignments, and baggage claim locations — was linked to DOOH screen IDs at four major German airports: Düsseldorf, Frankfurt/​Main, Hamburg, and Munich. This enabled the campaign to dynamically trigger creative tailored to each arriving flight. 
 

For example

Passengers arriving from Japan encountered creative highlighting Japanese-inspired menu items, while travellers landing from the United Kingdom saw messaging tied to British offerings. The creative was displayed in both German and the respective native languages — Japanese and English. Ads appeared along the path from arrival gates through baggage claim areas, aligning the creative with the traveller’s point of arrival.

How “Mecces um die Welt” guides travellers from planes to restaurants

In total, the campaign orchestrated messaging across more than 400 airport DOOH screens, automatically adapting the creative to each arrival. 

The campaign also formed part of a broader omnichannel strategy, extending messaging across channels including connected TV, online video, and display. This approach supported consistent exposure while maintaining relevance across the consumer journey. 

Measuring the real-world impact of DOOH

Alongside contextual activation, the campaign focused on understanding how DOOH could contribute to measurable business outcomes. 

Using Adsquare’s offline conversion measurement, the team matched mobile device IDs exposed to the campaign with device IDs later detected at restaurant locations, enabling the team to connect media exposure with real-world visits and conversions. 

The results showed that contextual DOOH placements meaningfully accelerated the path to conversion:

x
higher conversion rate when DOOH was included in the campaign
+
days faster path to restaurant visit compared to campaigns without DOOH
days average time to visit after DOOH exposure

A new model for contextual real-world media

By linking real-world signals, such as flight arrivals, with programmatic activation and measurable attribution, airport screens become dynamic displays that can deliver culturally relevant messaging to travellers at the right moment. 

This innovative approach also points towards a broader opportunity for marketers: There’s never been a better time to use real-world context to power advertising strategies so that they feel timely to consumers and measurable for brands.