McDonalds Maketing Strategies

'McDonald's is the world's leading foodservice retailer with more than 30,000 restaurants serving nearly 46 million people in more than 110 countries each day. In the UK, McDonald's and its franchisees employ 70,000 staff in 1235 restaurants. This is McDonald's 30th year of operating in the UK.'

http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/?f=y [accessed 16th November]

Those infamous golden arches have come a long way since being established in 1940 by Dick and Mac McDonald. Ray Kroc, credited with the chain's global ambitions, bough the rights in 1955, he developed the brand and created the McDonalds Corporation.

Throughout this study I am going to evaluate the marketing strategies being pursued by McDonalds and identify the market dominance, which has lead to McDonald's being on of the most successful multi-nationals to date.

Effective marketing has enabled McDonalds to create a worldwide demand for fast food.

'The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim is to know and to understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him/her and sells itself!'

Peter Drucker, Cited in Marketing Concepts & Strategies p6

The underlying principle of marketing is that to be successful, a business needs to satisfy their customers so to increase the likelihood of repeat custom. To ensure this, the business needs to construct an appropriate marketing strategy to fulfil this criterion.

McDonald's has an exceptional understanding of these aspects within there marketplace, as McDonalds do not offer a product for every type of consumer they attempt to identify groups of customers, defined as a 'market segment', this is a band of people in the case of McDonald's these will be defined demographically for instance age, gender and region. Each individual band of customers would then be offered specifically tailored products and a marketing mix programme to suit.

For instance the marketing and promotion for the Big Mac (see Appendix 1) is geared around males, examples of the promotion geared around males would be throughout the period of June and July for the 2004 European Football Championships in Portugal, Big Macs were buy one get one free.

Another example would be the marketing be the marketing of the happy meal (see Appendix 1), which is directed at children. The marketing and promotion of this product often involves the backing of Disney, linking the happy meal to the latest animation film in the cinema, this could be seen with the release of Disney's latest film 'The Incredibles' as five leading characters from the film can each be collected over a period of five consecutive weeks.

As McDonalds operate in a dynamic fast moving market to maintain their dominance it is important they constantly assess their customers' requirements and be prepared to modify their marketing activity accordingly. As the assessment of marketing opportunities is an evolving process it is important McDonald's provide regular revision and up-dating to their ongoing marketing strategy so to ensure the company objectives are reached.

For this to be achieved it is important to maintain the marketing mix, this is:

The main variables through which a firm carries out its marketing strategy, often known as the four P's.

- Product

- Price

- Promotion

- Place

Lines, D, Marcouse, I & Martin, B, A-Z of Business Studies

Although very basic these are the factors McDonalds can control in order to facilitate a satisfying exchange.

The most common attribute of the marketing mix to be modified, given the type of market McDonalds operate in would be promotion. McDonalds employ a large quantity of below the line promotion; this method of promotion is fitting considering the volatile market that McDonalds operate in. Below the line promotion usually consists of price and added value promotions; it is most commonly used for tactical and short-term reason. Examples of this include student discount cards and the option to 'go large' (have a larger drink and fries with your meal for an extra thirty pence) with your meals.

McDonald's use celebrity endorsements in their television advertising, this could be see in the recent 'i'm lovin' it' campaign where Justin Timberlake was featured. This is an effective method of advertisng directed at the teen generation, where he is a key figure head, role model and instantly recogniseable. Making the McDonalds campaigns more rememberable, giving them an advatnage over other competitors in the fast food industry. Although there are many ethical issues and implication which arise when advertising is focused

of children and teens, it still remains an effective way of increasing customers, by putting pressure of parents to take them to McDonalds outlets.

McDonalds uses test marketing to determine the reactions of probable buyers of their produce. This is done by introducing of a product into restaurants in geographical areas chosen to represent the intended market. After McDonalds had developed the 'Salads Plus' product range for its new menu, it test marketed them in certain restaurants to find out what the customers felt about eating salad at McDonalds, the company would have followed similar strategies for previous products such as the 'McChicken Sandwich' and the not so successful pizza in the United Kingdom.

Although McDonalds is one of the largest fast food chains in the world, they still look to expand their customer base. This could be seen recently with the introduction of the 'Salads Plus' range. The rationale behind the marketing and promotion of this new range was to expand its customer base by building brand awareness and driving trials of its products. I believe the target was to attract new customers who were not likely to visit McDonalds on a regular basis, due to their perceptions of the food and nutritional content.

Also the 'Salads Plus' menu was introduced