Digital Marketing Strategy of McDonald's and its Competitor Burger King

This article discusses the digital marketing strategy of McDonald's, including its social media platforms and target audience. It also examines the company's recent marketing missteps. The article then compares McDonald's to its biggest competitor, Burger King, and highlights Burger King's successful guest relations tool and customer-oriented approach.

Running Head: DIGITAL MARKTING 0
Digital MARKETING

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Table of Contents
Question 1..................................................................................................................................2
Question 2..................................................................................................................................2
Question 3..................................................................................................................................3
Question 4..................................................................................................................................3
References..................................................................................................................................5

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Question 1
McDonald’s is an American fast food chain, which is operated by the Richard and Maurice
McDonald in California and United States. It serves about 68 million customers daily in 119
counties. The first business as hamburger was converted into the franchise later on. Currently
the company is operating at the lower revenue of US$ 22.820 billion and is operating at near
about 37241 restaurants worldwide (McDonalds, 2018).
The current offerings by the McDonalds are burgers, French fries, wraps and deserts. Apart
from this there are certain meals and combos provided according to the needs and preferences
of different customers. The classic meal of the McDonalds is suitable for the family and the
Mcsaver Breakfast meal is economical and affordable by all (Pasquier, 2015).
Talking about the positioning of the McDonalds, it has made itself the family and the youth
oriented franchise serving each class with different varieties of menu. The positioning
strategy includes the development of the unique image in the head of the customers by
developing the strategy according to the target audience. Originally the mascot of the
McDonalds was the man with the chef’s hat and in the year 1967 the company come up with
the idea of the clown which attracted the kids and gained much of the popularity since then.
Apart from the clown the taglines used by the McDonalds was relatable with the customers.
The usage of the local advertising channels is again the attractive initiative to boost the sales.
The target market of the McDonalds mainly includes the youth, kids and the families for a
routine hangout. The kids and the teenagers are the core targets and the families are getting
influenced by the culture and adopting the same (Weerawardena, 2018).

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Question 2
The digital marketing strategy of the McDonalds covers all aspects of the social media from
Instagram to Facebook, to twitter and recently launched on the Linked In as well. The
website of the McDonalds is colourful in nature which not only attracts the customer but
creates a curiosity among them to explore more. The offers are put in the top section that
mostly attracts the customer searching value for money and apart from that the entire menu is
easy accessible to the customers (Foodbev Media, 2012).
The location feature creates a diverse serving all across the world and the exclusive deals and
the nutritional facts are also put up on the portal to gain more knowledge of what people are
buying.
The social media platform used by the McDonalds is facebook and Twitter majorly and the
helps them cover a great amount of the audience by launching all the coupons and the
information regarding any new product.
Question 3
The latest marketing strategy of the McDonalds misses the mark and the company truly does
not know how to operate in the company’s digital marketing scenario. The company is facing
problems in offering the word to the customers via social media and reduced marketing
efforts. For example the feature of the information on the ingredients on its website is not
offering the true or honest knowledge. And this uncovered in case of the McDonald’s
Chicken Nuggets where the company claims the use of the white meat chicken combined
with marinade but the truth is altogether different. Most of the ingredients are even hard to
pronounce and understand. Apart from this the McDonalds “Our food, your Questions”
campaign suffers the drastic changes according to the news and the experts in the field of

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honesty and self-awareness. The millions of dollars are spent by the company in the
marketing of the ads and redesigning of the stores to change the public perception and it
becomes super irrelevant and in effective. The investment of the money is high but the
interaction with the customers is really slow. The queries are not handled with the zest and
the pace with which it shall be handled. Moreover the contact provided on the website works
very often in case of the McDonalds (Weerawardena, 2018).
Question 4
The biggest competitor of the McDonalds in the same industry is Burger king. Burger king is
working as the galvaniser in the business for more than 60 years and has emerged as largest
food hamburger restaurant chain with more than 100 outlets across the world. The new
strategy opted by the Burger King is the new guest relations tool. This tool helps the guests to
provide the feedback on their experience while dining in the restaurant over the portal of the
company over the period of the 24 hours a day and seven days a week. This successful
strategy which McDonalds lacks was catered beautifully by the Burger king. It also allows
the guests to interact with the brand and also provides the easy access over the smartphones
and the laptops as well. The mobile website has a different outlook and provides the
information according to the region (Burgerking, 2018). This idea of supplementing the
integrated strategy and the support though the social media channels with the help of the on-
going communication and the conversations. Therefore in my response the Burger king
Brand is more successful in comparison to the McDonalds as it is more creative and customer
oriented in comparison to the McDonalds. Moreover in terms of the outlook and the
personality the website of the Burger King is more operational and the social media platforms
used by the Burger King are used keeping in mind the needs and the outreach with the

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customers (Confos and Davis, 2016). Henceforth in my opinion the Burger King wins over
the McDonalds in terms of the customer interaction.

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References
Burgerking, (2018) Menu [Online] Available from https://www.bk.com/ [Accessed on 11th
December 2018]
Confos, N. and Davis, T., (2016) Young consumer-brand relationship building potential using
digital marketing. European Journal of Marketing, 50(11), pp.1993-2017.
Foodbev Media, (2012) Burger King launches digital marketing strategy [Online] Available
from https://www.foodbev.com/news/burger-king-launches-digital-marketing-s/ [Accessed
on 11th December 2018]
McDonalds, (2018) Menu [Online] Available from https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-
us.html [Accessed on 11th December 2018]
Pasquier., M. (2015) MCDONALD’S DIGITAL INNOVATION STRATEGY: BUILDING THE
RESTAURANT OF THE FUTURE AS A STARTUP [Online] Available from
https://www.innovationiseverywhere.com/mcdonalds-digital-innovation-strategy-building-
the-restaurant-of-the-future-as-a-startup/ [Accessed on 11th December 2018]
Weerawardena, J., (2018) 8 Non-Profit Marketing Strategy. Transformational Leadership
and Not for Profits and Social Enterprises.