Getting the Max out of Mac's!

With over 1,000 stores across the country, Mac’s Convenience Stores/Alimentation Couche-Tard is the largest national convenience store network in Canada. It has been known in the past for its rather original marketing strategies, and more recently for ambitious contests such as the Wizards & Dragons - The Fantasy Game and Alien Abduction Game.

A year ago, 612 Creative, in collaboration with The Jibe, launched the original MyMacs.ca website for Mac’s Western Division. A bold site with a top-notch approach to community engagement has lead to the registration of 35,000 users in its first year.

In mid-January, with The Jibe's help, 612 released the second phase of the MyMacs.ca implementation: the incorporation of Mac’s Central Division. By leveraging the existing infrastructure, and creatively implementing and extending Drupal’s community contributed modules, we were able to provide both company divisions the ability to publish their own unique content, or to share content across divisions, and to have site visitors automatically directed to the division’s content that matches their geographic location. This ability is particularly important to Mac’s because promotions and contests are often specific to a company division.

We carefully considered and analysed the different ways in which the division-specific content could be implemented before deciding that the localization and internationalization systems were best suited for the task. By commandeering Drupal’s multilingual support and implementing the divisional / regional content separation as languages we were able to make use of largely pre-existing functionality. We then added in a geolocation service and some custom code to bring it all together. The result? A system that is simple to use, easy to maintain, highly scalable, and very cost effective. See our technical post explaining the details on how this was achieved.

As a result of the MyMac.ca phase two implementation, Mac’s can now better reach and further engage the customers of its 571 Ontario Stores with contextually appropriate content. Beyond this ability to create cross-division and targeted content, this merging is a step towards a consolidation of Mac’s web properties. The advantages are obvious: a more cohesive message without sacrificing the distinctiveness of each region using a single secure, scalable and easy to maintain system.

We are proud to continue collaborating with the awesome 612 Creative team on MyMacs.ca. In providing the technical strategy and skills we have enabled Mac’s to better engage their customers in efficient yet fun and exiting ways.