McDonald's Marketing Strategy Analysis

This assignment requires an analysis of McDonald's marketing strategy, focusing on segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Students must examine McDonald's chosen target market, the influence of social media on their brand loyalty, and how their overall marketing mix contributes to their success. The provided sources include articles discussing McDonald's strategies, industry reports, and case studies highlighting their approach to social media marketing.

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Digital Marketing and Social Media
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Executive summary
This paper reviews McDonalds as an organization that operates in the Restaurant industry in
Australia. Though the industry faces different strategies, consumers changing preferences drive
the market. McDonalds has two main rivals in Australia, KFC and Hungry Jacks. It has
maintained the largest market share by having competitive advantages over its adversaries.
Social media is a platform that McDonalds can utilize to enhance consumer satisfaction and lead
in crisis resolution. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snap Chat are some of the platforms that
this corporation can utilize. Besides, different strategies can be used in navigating these sites.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary.....................................................................................................................................2
Brief overview.............................................................................................................................................4
Social media presence.................................................................................................................................5
Competitive analysis....................................................................................................................................6
Goals............................................................................................................................................................7
Strategies.....................................................................................................................................................8
Target market..............................................................................................................................................8
Social media platforms................................................................................................................................9
Implementation...........................................................................................................................................9
Monitoring.................................................................................................................................................10
Social Media Monitoring Tools..................................................................................................................10
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................................11

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Brief overview
The Restaurant business mostly gives sustenance and drinks to consumption within the restaurant
building. Clients customers and are served while seated and payment is done after enjoying their
meals. In Australia, changing social patterns have driven solid income growth for the Restaurants
business in the course of recent years. Busier ways of life and reducing leisure time have
progressively driven shoppers result in taking their meals in restaurants. Restaurants have
enabled customers to consolidate leisure and dining and abstain from food preparation which
takes time. These patterns are relied upon to drive the industry income conjecture to develop by
three percent. The industry has the following threats and opportunities: customer interest for
fine-dining encounters and quality food has progressed industry's income. Besides, consumer
continuous search for stylish settings is relied upon to drive industry income. However, changing
customer conduct has driven numerous administrators to rebuild their restaurant
(Ibisworld.com.au. 2017, p. 100).
McDonalds is a fast food chain restaurant that entered the Australian market in 1971 and
manages very nearly eight hundred diversified restaurants around the nation. Its value chain
assessment demonstrates that the organization has developed critical foundation conditions
which empowers it in obliging the necessities and prerequisites of its clients in Australia in a
positive manner. The positioning of McDonald demonstrates that it occupies the biggest share of
the overall industry in the business and the development potential has additionally been higher.
McDonalds is leading in the business while KFC comes in second and Hungry Jacks is
positioned among different rivals in the business. Concerning the center competency of brand
notoriety as controlled by McDonald, it is prescribed that the organization should additionally
endeavor to improve its notoriety. This can be accomplished by centering towards social media
marketing. Most recently, it partnered with Snap chat to attract the millennial population.

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Including social media in its marketing mix can enable the multinational to attract potential
consumers and employees hitting the online marketing jackpot (Mcdonalds.com.au. 2017, p. 89).
Social media presence
Sentiment Analysis is the way toward deciding whether a review is certain, negative or impartial
(Tuten and Solomon, 2014, p. 20). A typical utilization case for this innovation is to find how
individuals are fulfilled by food in a specific restaurant. Say one needs to know whether
individuals on Twitter surmise that McDonald's nourishment in a specific area in Australia is
great or awful. Twitter assessment examination will answer this inquiry. One can even realize
why individuals think the nourishment is great or terrible, by separating the correct words that
demonstrate why individuals did or didn't care for the food. This is the sort of knowledge one
expects to discover through market surveying. McDonald conducts a consistent assumption
examination particularly negative McDonald's audits. Contributors are provided surveys
separated from low-evaluated McDonald's from arbitrary metro zones and asked to arrange for
what valid reason the areas got low audits. Alternatives given are moderate and inconsiderate
service, bad food, issues with ordering, dirty location, bad neighborhood, cost and missing items
(CrowdFlower, 2015, p. 66).
Additionally, McDonald provides contact information for all its food outlets in Australia.
Accessing this information require easy access to internet and their website to reach the
company. Once calls are made to the nearest outlet, customer service assistance are ready to take
request and for inquiries. Alternatively, McDonald’s holds twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for
regular company posts. This allows the company to maintain regular contact with its customers
and conduct an opinion review (Erdoğmuş, and Cicek, 2012). Besides, alerts on what their
employees post are maintained to safeguard the company’s reputation. More often than not,

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McDonalds provides regular feedback to clients who access them through Facebook and twitter.
It employs staff who monitors these reviews and gives appropriate feedback (Levco, 2013, p.
50). What’s more, McDonald has an average response time of approximately once in every ten
seconds. Besides, based on the traffic, some of the responses are conducted on real time
(Sherwood, 2016, p. 45).
Competitive analysis
In Australia, McDonalds has two major rivals, Kentucky Food Chain and Hungry Jacks. After
conducting a SWOT analysis of the three competitors, some aspects were identified that gave
each organization a competitive advantage over the other. For McDonalds, the following
strengths were identified. McDonald is a global brand that is dominant in Australia. It has
diversified this brand in many countries gaining a geographic presence. Compared to its rivals,
McDonalds is leading in the number of outlets in Australia. Besides, the corporation has strong
supply chain abilities and conducts large-scale operations. On the other hand, KFC though it has
a global presence, it has managed to localize its activities offering large product portfolios and
long product life (Amor, 2013, p. 78). Hungry Jacks has an Australian image unlike the others. It
also has better measurability of its products and owns distinctive brands such as the Whopper.
Together, these rivals have common strengths such as global presence, though in different levels,
offer good fast foods and have locations. McDonalds precedes its competitors has it has vast
capita resources and a dominant universal presence.
Consequently, these companies have weakness. McDonalds has had fluctuating revenues over
the years and is accused of having a changeless menu. Besides, most of the foods offered are
unhealthy. KFC has a slow growth rate, poor focus on research and development as well as
providing unhealthy foods. It is also expensive compared to its competitors. Alternatively,

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Hungry Jack has the inability to beat competition such as McDonalds and KFC thus have a
smaller market share. The three rivals have similar threats that prevail in the industry. Consumer
preferences are changing as they demand quality food. Besides, low prices advertised by
restaurants may affect their revenues. Increasing competition is a significant threat for Hungry
Jacks in comparison to the other two.
Nonetheless, the industry has some opportunities for growth. The dominance of social media
allows these companies to turn to providing online orders. They could also gather information
through social media sites and develop new products (Amor, 2013, p. 2). Opportunities for
developing business alliances could solve issues such as KFC slow growth rate and boost
Hungry Jacks to beat competition. McDonalds could use this alliances to stabilize it revenues. It
is important to note that prices offer McDonalds a competitive advantage over KFC but elements
such as brand dominance and services do not. Compared to Hungry Jacks its vast resources, and
brand dominance puts ahead.
Goals
Since McDonald is a global organization, social media may have little effect on its brand
building. Its social media presence has allowed the organization to create awareness throughout
the world and more so in Australia. However it may achieve various objectives through social
media. First, it may increase customer satisfaction through sentiment analysis. It could identify
the negative reviews and generate new ways of satisfying its clientele (Erdoğmuş, and Cicek,
2012, p. 8). Besides, McDonalds may generate a leading crisis management reputation through
social media. Through social media, it could reach a significant population to offer solutions on
rising issues. Incorporating social media marketing and public address would also enhance its
revenues and attain service optimization.

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Strategies
To achieve these goals, McDonald has to develop some social media strategies. First, the
company has to categorize social media platforms based on where to reach its target audience.
For instance, Instagram and Snap chat can reach the millennial generation while twitter reaches
consumers from all cohorts. Secondly, knowing how social media operates, McDonald should
create content on these platforms that not only promotes the company but also builds trust with
the consumers by providing information that clients can learn from (Safko, 2010, p. 12). Thirdly,
contribution. The only to remain relevant on social media is through contribution on various
issues both in the industry and the society as a whole (Zarrella, 2009, p 102). This strategy
ensures that McDonalds is a respected member on social media. Next, and most importantly,
collaboration. Recently, McDonalds partnered with Snap Chat a strategy that sought to attract the
young generation. Collaboration develops business relationships and creates a lasting reputation
(Levco, 2013, p. 42). Lastly, McDonalds has to poll these social media platforms to gather
information on what the community requires. This way the corporation can conduct a market
research and develop products that best meet the demands of its consumers. Besides, it can get
insights on issues it can solve in the society through corporate social responsibility (Safko, 2010,
p. 9).
Target market
McDonald’s market segmentation, positioning and targeting is one of the basic elements of its
advertising system. Segmentation includes isolating populace into bunches as per certain
attributes such as behavior, demography and geography, while targeting on suggests picking
particular groups recognized because of segmentation to offer products (What makes
McDonald's. 2017, p. 110). Market positioning alludes to the determination of the marketing

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blend the most appropriate for the objective client section. McDonald's uses versatile kind of
product positioning and in like manner, the organization periodically re-positioned its products
and services as per changes in the market segment (Dudovskiy, 2016, p. 66). It targets people
from all age groups irrespective of gender and offers products based on the income status and the
society preferences. It also focuses on the behavior of consumers such as potential fast food eater
and those who consider time and cost benefits.
Social media platforms
The internet allows the existence and usage of various social media platforms. Twitter,
Instagram, Facebook and Snap Chat are some of the platforms that McDonalds could use in
social media marketing. This platforms have two common aspect. First, they are accessed by a
significant population on a daily basis and secondly, they provide instant feedback (Safko, 2010,
p. 99). In Ranking, Twitter is the first platform that McDonalds should utilize. It is accessed by
all people irrespective of the age thus providing a wide range of target audience for the company
(Mangold, and Faulds, 2009). Besides, the rate at which feedback is generated on twitter
surpasses other platforms. Secondly, Instagram provides for visual advertisement of images.
Unlike other platforms, Instagram focusses of sharing images rather that communication and is
frequently visited. It also targets the millennial generation (De Vries, Gensler, and Leeflang,
2012, p. 6). Facebook, like twitter reaches many people and provides wide range of information.
Lastly, Snap Chat can reach potential consumers from the young generation (Tuten, and
Solomon, 2014, p. 77).

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Implementation
To utilize these platforms to its advantage, McDonalds needs to provide regular content of each
of these sites. This will generate information and feedback on various aspects of its organization.
Besides, it should communicate and provide information via these platforms to build trust with
its consumers and reduce brand switching. The key to maintaining social media presence is
generating information via tweets and comments on social media, a tactic that McDonalds should
utilize. Besides, using Google alerts ensures that it gets relevant information on a timely basis
(Mangold, and Faulds, 2009, p. 10).
Monitoring
A variety of social media monitoring tools can be used to monitor these platforms. Business
toolkits such as SAS program sought information for business motives (Laine, and Frühwirth,
2010, p. 45). Besides, Amplifies analytics is a monitoring instruments that concentrate on
product audits and information promotions. Additionally, visualization software gives
organization commercial intelligence to enable target marketing. These are tools that McDonalds
should use to monitor social media.
Social Media Monitoring Tools
Additionally, the strategies for social media should be monitored. First, tracking of these plans is
necessary. It ensures that implementation and desired results are achieved. Secondly, the
relevance of these results should be measured using various social media metrics and monitoring
tools. Thirdly, the strategies should be evaluates by using experts in social media to ensure that
the strategies are appropriate in generation of information and meeting the set goals (Ittner, and
Larcker, 2007, p. 4).

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