McDonalds Marketing Analysis

McDonalds Marketing Analysis

        McDonald’s is a globalized food-chain enterprise that operates in various countries like in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. In this paper, I am going to discuss about McDonald’s managements and operations in Malaysia, India and Hong Kong. For each country, I would like to talk about their official website, advertisements or promotions and special menu. So, let’s start with the first country.

        Malaysia is a country with multi-cultured people living together as a single nation. Thus, operating in Malaysia is not very easy for any company. McDonald’s did its thorough research before entering the market. If we look at McDonald’s official website for Malaysia, it has the most important “Halal” sign because Malaysia is a Muslim country and it’s a requirement. Halal means that the meat is prepared as agreed by Muslim Law and as a food-chain that sells burger, McDonald’s captured that successfully. As for the homepage, there are details not just about their food offering but also the company’s news and new trends around the world. Malaysia is a collectivist country, so Malaysians are concerned about others not just themselves. If we study the design of the website, it is very simple with minimum usage of color. Also, there are more words than pictures/ads which is the appropriate way Malaysians prefer.

        In the promotions, they featured more food items in one ad or at least one food item with two or more cups of coffee, showing collectivism. They promote weekend specials in Malaysia giving importance to families because Malaysians give priorities to their families. Under weekend specials they even stated, “savor every minute together with your family over McDonald’s breakfast”. Also, they offer weekdays specials to encourage Malaysians to eat breakfast by stating, “At McDonald’s, there’s always time for breakfast”. They encourage that because Malaysians like to skip their breakfast and it’s not good for health. Moreover, they also have an advertisement on accepting credit card in the website. I think they utilized that because Malaysia believes in short-term achievements. They offer two types of Happy Meals toys separately for the girls and boys. Malaysia appreciates gender equality, so McDonald’s made use of it.

        As for the menu, the different food item that I spotted is the porridge. They are not offering porridges in other countries, only in Malaysia because Malaysians love to eat porridge. Under drinks they also offer “Milo” which is a famous drink in Malaysia. Other than that, there are varieties of burgers from beef, chicken to fish and also limited choices in coffee.

        Next, country is India which is the birthplace of so many unique flavors and spices. McDonald’s considered this fact well enough before they entered the market which led to their success in India. If we look at the official website for India, the design is simple, elegant and easy-to-use. The homepage features more than one food item in each advertisement indicating collectivism. They also didn’t use too many words, just mentioned the important things in bold titles. From that, I can say that they understood Indian’s masculinity culture and went with bold and straightforward wordings than choosing complex descriptions. The use of color was also incredible and it gave the overall Indian vibe to the site.

        If we analyze their ads/promotions, they featured more than one person showing collectivism, discussing about their life in groups while eating. That is what exactly Indians do normally and McDonald’s used that well in their ads. There is a special promotion only in India offered by McDonald’s called the “sharing pack” with the slogan, “happiness is only real when shared”. As I mentioned earlier, eating together in groups is Indian culture and McDonald’s is applying that to encourage Indian customers to come to McDonald’s with friends and family and spend their time there with some Mc Burgers. I also noticed something called the breakfast club loyalty card being offered by McDonald’s in India. They are very well informed that unlike Malaysians, Indians don’t like to skip their breakfast. So, they used this fact and India’s long-term achievement orientation to provide a loyalty card encouraging customers to have their breakfast at McDonald’s every morning. They also arrange memorable birthday parties for children in their outlets throughout India.