Digital Marketing Strategies for McDonald's

This assignment examines McDonald's approach to digital marketing. It critically evaluates past campaigns, highlighting both successes and failures, such as the #McDStories debacle. The document then proposes alternative digital marketing strategies leveraging platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to effectively reach McDonald's target audience.

Running head: DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital Marketing: McDonalds
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1DIGITAL MARKETING
Internet has changed the way the world works in today’s time. With the advent of modern
technologies and continuous growth and encouragement given to innovation of technology
companies can reach the end customers in just a click. One of the latest trends of the decade is
the social media. These are platforms used with the help of internet to connect and communicate
with people who are geographically located away from the sender of the message. Social media
has also made mass communication easy a person can post a massage on the portal and that can
be viewed and given feedback by many receivers. Digital marketing is referred to all the forms
of marketing strategies that is adopted by a business organization online. Digital medium such as
Google search, social media, email, and their websites are used as a tool to communicate
between the organization and the end customer (Ryan 2016). People now have access to data and
information at any point of time and place with the help of internet. With the help of several
modern mobile devices like Smartphone and tablets this facility is even easier and digital
marketing is using this facility as benefit for an organization. Digital marketing has made
feedback option very easy and quick, this is a significant reason why companies encourage
digital media. Posting reviews of a product or service in a blog or the review section of any e-
commerce website is like an instant feedback for the company. Digital marketing helps a
company build a personal relationship with the customers and helps them develop a better
understanding of the customer expectation and grievances. McDonalds is a fan favorite it is now
an icon. McDonalds is a large multination company that has a large number of stores and
franchise (Chaffey et al. 2013). However, the company has faced a lot of criticism and negative
publicity over the years regarding several aspects of the products and services they offer and also
on the management. But the company has dealt will all the negativity only to grow and keep
expanding (Leeflang et al. 2014).

2DIGITAL MARKETING
McDonalds is a dynamic organization that has changed with the requirement and the
advances of the target customers. The customers of the brand are a diverse population that enjoys
the food that the franchise has to offer along with the company. The current situation of the
company is that the profits of the company have been experiencing a downfall and it is difficult
for McDonalds to meet the expectations of the stakeholders along with this the sales of the
organization has also seen a steep fall, at this point the organization has opted to launch an
ambitious and somewhat risky marketing campaign centered on what exactly is in the food it
offers consumers. McDonald’s has been focusing on changing the fundamental mind set or
notion of people for the past few years. The marketing strategies that are adopted by the
company have changed course on exposing myths that is associate with food, as well as pushing
a message of quality.
One of the examples of a very trending digital campaign of McDonalds is the
promotional strategy of the new Bacon Clubhouse burger, McDonald’s partnered with popular
NBA star LeBron James and other famous sports personalities in order to makes a Snapchat
video story of just 30 seconds. Snapchat is a popular social media application among the youth
and this strategy is perfect for introducing new products into the line. This is a successful
strategy but the rate of success is not as much as was expected by the company. The duration of
these snap stories are for a limited period of time and there are people who can easily miss the
story. Again only the people who follow these celebrities can view the snap stories and the rest
cannot even if they are a regular user of the application. You may have noticed the brand’s recent
TV commercials, which feature a large McDonald’s kiosk on a sidewalk encouraging pedestrians
to ask questions about the restaurant’s food (Leeflang et al. 2014).

3DIGITAL MARKETING
Experts say that the companies understanding of the digital marketing sector is wrong
and the information and reach of the internet is still new to the company. For example, the
content in their website deals with the products the brand and the ingredients that is used by the
company in the products that they offer, but the information is not insightful does not have a
point of reference and is almost vague for the people. Our Food, Your Questions is another
digital campaign that did not receive success because the strategy did not have transparency in
the campaign and it from a lack of honesty and self-awareness (Royle and Laing 2014).
McDonalds fails to communicate with the end customers and continues to invest a lot of money
in the traditional form of marketing like billboards and television advertising and statistics show
that there is a falling trend in the effectiveness of traditional forms in compared to digital
marketing trends. The twitter #McDstories proved as a disaster for the company garnering a lot
of negative comment and bad publicity form the twitteraties. With a series of hash tag camping
started by the company this is one that backfired the motives of the brand tremendously. People
started sharing their worst experiences with the company rather than the good ones and some of
the experiences shared were very controversial and had a negative impact on the image of the
company (Chaffey et al. 2013).
Facebook is one of the most popular and used social media platforms and the reach of
Facebook is wide spread and diverse. One of the digital marketing strategies that can be used by
McDonalds is extensive use of Facebook by promoting and sharing some extraordinary positive
experiences that employees of MacDonald had while working with the organization. Instagram
has gained a lot of popularity lately and people enjoy sharing their photos MacDonald can come
up with a photo challenge with the #McPic offering people with best clicks in real time discounts
or free meal option. But this would be applicable for people who are visiting the store for meal.

4DIGITAL MARKETING
Another social media platform that is very popular among the youth and the target market of
McDonalds is YouTube. YouTube in today’s time has a large influence on the buying trends of
consumers acting as an influence factor in the buying behavior of the target market of a company
(Royle and Laing 2014). Starting from Smartphone to other electronic good, beauty products and
even services are tested by the youtubers and are reviewed. Like beauty products and lifestyle
products a new product can be launch and reviewed by popular food vlogger and YouTube
personalities to post their honest reviews. McDonalds can collaborate with these people and ask
them to post their honest review and implement the changes recommended and again ask these
people to talk about it in their other social media platforms (Ryan 2016).
Digital marketing is a new and improved method of marketing, which if implemented
correctly has a significant impact in communicating the right message to the right people at the
right time. But, companies also have use the platform carefully and responsible keep in mind the
sensibility of the message and the impact it will have on the society. Crisis management and
contingency plans are a part of the digital marketing strategies companies should plan ahead of
the expected outcomes of a campaign and act accordingly because what people think and say on
the internet is not under the control of the company hence the contingency plans are a crutial part
of any marketing campaign.

5DIGITAL MARKETING
Reference list:
Chaffey, D., Smith, P.R. and Smith, P.R., 2013. eMarketing eXcellence: Planning and
optimizing your digital marketing. Routledge.
Leeflang, P.S., Verhoef, P.C., Dahlström, P. and Freundt, T., 2014. Challenges and solutions for
marketing in a digital era. European management journal, 32(1), pp.1-12.
Royle, J. and Laing, A., 2014. The digital marketing skills gap: Developing a Digital Marketer
Model for the communication industries. International Journal of Information
Management, 34(2), pp.65-73.
Ryan, D., 2016. Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital
generation. Kogan Page Publishers.