The marketing strategy for Mcdonalds Corporaton

MC DONALDS is one of the leading food chain brands touching the lives of people every day. As a brand it started in California during the 1940s as a restaurant by two brothers Richard and Maurice mcdonald,mainly it started as a popular teen hangout place.To feed the teens age people the brothers reduced the menu to only hamburgers,and then expanded their business to four restaurants by 1953.For further expansion after their success in 1955,the entrepreneur Ray kroc bought the right to franchise mc donalds as a globalized brand.after that he renamed it to mc Donald corporation in 1960,kroc focused mainly on family meals for children,spending huge amounts heavily on television advertising.today,the mcdonald family has exceeded to about 30,000 restaurants globally and serves over 50million people in more than 100 contries each day.between 1969 and 2005 mc Donald strategies were displayed on the business pages of the NEW YORK TIMES displayin repeatedly the American success story in the united states important news paper.however,the brand also faced many criticism in the news for the labour ,environmental issues and its expanding empire.the critics mainly voiced concerns and anxieties about the problems of the youth labour ,its impact on the community values and the healthy lifestyles of people.

INTRODUCTION

Marketing strategy is essential for the success of a product in a target market as argued by Philip Kotler (1988). Nower days the completion in market has increased drastically. For ant company I global market to succeed should focus on the three basic core elements that are mission, vision and values. These help and are responsible for the successful growth and stable profit earning of the company. For a global corporations like McDonald’s, establishing the three pillars takes more effort as diversity and culture be taken into consideration and respect.

Mission: to serve around the globe and to promote diversification of culture working in harmonized manner without any discrimantion.

Vision: in order to be the customers priority choice The McDonald’s system leverages the unique talents, strengths, and assets of our diversity around the globe

Value’s: “Q.S.C. & V.” – Quality, Service, Cleanliness, and Value.

McDonald’s is one of the company that is nationally recognized for its diversity and got ample of awards in USA only including

PUSH-Excel Corporate Partner Award,

Corporate Achievement and Image Award,

Nullities Corporate Award, Corporate Vision Award,

Circle of Inclusion Award.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths

•    it is a global brand having 31,000 restaurants in 120 countries which is famous both internationally and nationally. Us is the biggest market with 14,000 restaurants.

•   the cost reduction technique is use of economy of sale. It expands and takes risks with economical growth.

•    ‘The Ronald McDonald House’ is one of the best active charity home that is very famous.

•    most of revenues earned are by providing franchisee of the barnd to various restaurants and by increasing fast food sales.

•   it is a social responsible company that is more concern with society and environment.

•    it blends and adjusts according to the global culture of the place where it is located.

•   it selects location that are local public hub like airport, tourist placeas, theme parks etc.

•   the food is made hygienically, efficientally and in systematical manner.

•    it provides customer with the insights of healthy food bt giving them nutrious tips.

Weaknesses

•    the advertisements are only focused on children

•    training amount always keeps increasing because of more number of people being employed for short time.

•    Price competition with the competitors resulting in low revenue.

•    Lack of innovative products.

Opportunities

•    the product range can be increased by use of new innovative ideas.

•  For other promotions it can use the green energy and fulfill the environmental factor along with social factor.

•   some of its location can be upgraded to increase customer numbers and the profit figures.

•  Slow and gradual expansion can only help to increase the profit margin

Threats

•   as all the prices are standard so fluctuation in monetary prices result in loss.

•   as competition is increasing all people are reducing cost and increasing revenues.

•    Health issues regarding the fast food chain.

•   market shares were decreased as money spent on advertisements was increased.

•   the advertising marketing strategy only focus on kids which is highly objectionable.

•    Emergence of major fast food competitors burger king, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, KFC.

MARKETING ANALYSIS

“Marketing Mix The set of controllable marketing variables that the company blends to produce the response it wants in the target market.”

– Kotler et al

The four P’s of market are highly important and are responsible for the market development and brand recognition.the four P’s of marketing mix can be described as below:

Product has to vary according to the taste as in food and beverage industry the quality and taste of food matters a lot.it should be according to overall customer needs. All products have got there own life cycle from launch to growth phase and then to the decline phase but it should try to stay maximum in the growth zone to increase capital.

Price should be worth the value paying for the product and the most important it should be economical and according to customers need. Customers value for money shoul be kept in mind than only customer will contribute to increase your company sales.

Promotion is both ‘above-the-line’ and ‘below-the-line’. ‘Above’ is advertisement done such as TV and press adverts. ‘Below’ is other promotions such as special offers, value added and competitions. The skill lies in using a number of ways to build a campaign.

Place refers to where the product is sold and to how it reaches there. This is called the supply chain.mc donalds have around 30,000 stores worldwide operating all together by the way of company owned or franchise owned

Competitive review

The emergence of food chain has pressured industry participants to continually add features and cut prices. Although McDonald’s is a market leader in its food and beverages industry but it is now facing tough competition from the new entrants. It has to continuously update the business strategies to compete with young new comers.

Following are the major McDonald’s Competitors present globally

Company

Original location

KFC

africa

Subway

miami

YUM brands

Milford,CT

Burger king

Louisville,ky

1.Burger King: is second to McDonald’s in competition of hamburger fast food chain. Although as compared to McDonald’s it has more number of franchised restaurants but revenues are low due to McDonald’s big size.

2.Wendy’s: is on third number of fast food chain competition across the world. It is severely affected by recession; it has quite small operation margins as compare to McDonald’s.

3.YUM! Brands: includes KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Long John Silver’s American Food Restaurants. China market is dominated by YUM! Brands. It serves as a biggest competitor while entering into the china market. While McDonald’srun its business under one flag. YUM! Has splits its resources into variety of brands generating high revenue.

BCG Matrix

In this section we will use certain tools to evaluate McDonald’s current products.Strategic business units are classified as stars, cash cows, question marks or dogs.According to analysis initially when McDonald’s as a business unit was a star that has high growth rate along with high market share, but now it has turned into cash cows. Cash cows is that strategic business unit in which has low growth rate and but it is enjoying high business share or product. McDonald’s is an established strategic unit that now needs less investment to garb its market share as compared to other emerging business units.In the BCG matrix Stars that depicts old traditional products are now enjoying a high market share without having too much changes as earlier. They have reached at sustainable market position, whereas McDonald’s continues with increasing more innovative food product that enjoys a great market share as well as shows a high growth rate. But there are a very few products which can be placed in dogs.With the passage of time strategic business units change their position. They complete their life cycle. A product may starts as a question marks then it succeeded and becomes stars. Then as time passes they turned into cash cows and when they reach to their maturity they ends up as dogs.

PROBLEMS OF MC DONALDS

CUSTOMERS MINDSET

Now in this present time , People are more concerned for there health they wish to be more fit and fine. Obviously, the reason for this increased awareness because all types of information is available and all reports and research have to link fast foods with the growing fatness. Nw to encourage people more about there health various diet programs have been introduced.this is a major problem as initially it gained reputation for supplying greasy unhealthy food.

HUMAN RESOURCE PROBLEM

The employee turnover rate is very high to mangae them all together is a very difficult task as there is vast variety of culture and tradition. So lot of attention, focus and consideration is required to be given loyalty and harwork are promoted to be the key success elements. Some persons working here may not work in harmony and create problem but overall company is able to blend all employers into global company culture.

LACK OF NEW PRODUCT LINE

The third problem that mc donalds faces is the lack of new product variety,mcdonalds from the last few years is just striving on its old products the customers now are getting bored with the same all food stuff ,where as the other brands are coming out with different new innovative products,due to this reason also mc donalds is getting less customer attraction .

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION OFINTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION

However, despite of the established brand mc donalds management has to redefine its image globally and contrary to its past achievements; The marketing strategy of company is implementating the process of Integrated marketing Communication (IMC). The major area focused is advertising adn campaigns for promotion of product and increase sales figure. Integrated Marketing Campaign is primary concerned on promotion of low calorie food as now people are fitness freak and are much cautious about fat and obesity. The company while trying something new thought of focusing on children food thta gave ita a bit bad .the company launched soon-to-be called’ McKids Meals thta was new and different from traditional meals and now it focused on health and nutition.In addition, the introduction of Integrated Marketing Communication implements a new horizon of customer satisfaction and integration along with new advertising methods.

MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCE

McDonald’sprovides many opportunities equally to all employers. McDonald assures that there is no sex, age or gender discrimination while selection, training or promotion but all are treated enough on fair basis.all employees are encouraged for hardwork on basis of there inner ability to work and how they perform .

The working environment and cororate culture maintained by McDonald’s is very legal i.e free from all discrimantion and harassments.team wok is the key to success for this company.all workers of the company are given rights to use the company handbook in case if they feel they are not been treated fairly od they are not satisfied with there services.

New Product Line

McDonald’s have to innovate with new product line . It is suggested that McDonald’s should innovate some diversified products so as to again capture the market.now for mc donalds to go back to its growth stage should rely on the test of marketing of its new product line.by this approach it will help mcdonalds new product to attain the star in future market.

Target market

They should identify the future target markets be careful and clear in initiating any advertisement campaign so they can affect the target customers minds strongly. They should target the old health conscious people instead of targeting kids and teenagers.

Tight Quality Controls

The immense growth of McDonald’s has made the quality of their R &D to decline.Now they should develop a tight quality control procedures so as to again increase their quality in the product so as to develop a huge market share.