Marketing Strategies and Plans for KFC and McDonald's

The assignment provided is a report that compares the marketing strategies and plans of KFC and McDonald's. It covers various aspects such as product line, pricing strategy, people (staff training), process (ordering system), and physical evidence (outlet design). The report concludes that proper implementation of marketing plans contributes to a company's profitability and coordination among different units is essential for targeting the market.

MARKETING ESSENTIAL

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1..........................................................................................................................................................3
Key role and responsibilities of marketing...............................................................................................3
Inter-relation of various units functioning in KFC....................................................................................5
TASK 2..........................................................................................................................................................6
Marketing Mix.........................................................................................................................................6
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................................8
Covered in PPT ........................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSIONS.............................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is a process by which a business promotes its products to make the customers
aware about the product which can fulfill their needs and provide customer satisfaction. The
process starts with identification of a product, analyzing the demand, deciding the price and
selecting distribution channels. The chosen company in this report is Kentucky Fried Chicken
(KFC) having its headquarter in United States. KFC is a fast food restaurant chain that
specializes in fried chicken. This report covers the role of marketing and its interrelationship
with other units of organization. Further a comparison of different marketing mix of KFC, and
lastly development and evaluation of its marketing plan (Dibb and Simkin, 2013).
TASK 1
Key role and responsibilities of marketing
Marketing is an organizational function of attracting the customers for selling a product
or service. It is a link between the organization and the society, where the organization identifies
the needs of the customers and fulfill the needs by providing according to their demand. The
main objective of an organization is to provide customer satisfaction. Marketing includes market
analysis, creating an understanding about customer behavior and providing best customer value.
Trends of marketing: The trend of marketing keeps changing according to the changes
that takes place in the marketing environment. KFC uses digital marketing, newspapers to
advertise the products. Social media can be the other way of promoting the products and services
to a large number of customer. In social media, the organization can promote their products by
advertising it on online media (Pike, 2015).
Marketing process: The marketing process helps the company to fulfill and provide
customer satisfaction to the dissatisfied customers. It is done with the objective to know about
the demand of the customers in order to increase sales by providing satisfaction to their needs. It
is divided into four steps and the steps are as follows: Situation Analysis: It is an analysis of both external and internal environment that affects
a business of an organization. These external environment consist macro factors and

internal environment consist of micro factors. This analysis takes into consideration the
past history, present and future aspects to identify the customer needs and fulfil them in
order to survive in the competitive market. Marketing Strategy: A right plan can help the organization to achieve its target. In this
step market research is done in order to gather specific market information that will help
the organization to target a particular market segment. Marketing Mix Decisions: This step includes designing and producing the product,
deciding the prices, executing contracts with various distributors and promoting the
product.
 Implementation and Control: This is the last step of marketing strategy, in which the
organization develop a marketing plan, implement the plan and prepare policies to
achieve the targets and control the outcomes (Scarborough, 2016).
The marketing department of KFC performs various functions to make profits for the
company by providing the best quality products. The marketing functions contributes to the
growth of the business. These functions helps the company to capture a huge market share and
make as many customers as it can. The functions are as follows:
Market research: Research is done to collect information about the target customers. It
is an evaluation of the needs and demands of the customers, the factors affecting the
organizational activities, tracking record of the quality required in the market etc. Market
research is necessary to take decisions regarding marketing of products.
Market Planning: The planning is done by marketing manager with an aim of meeting
the needs of the targeted customers. This helps the company on the enhancement of the presence
of the product in the market. To achieve the target the manager performs promotion and many
other activities (Baines, Fill and Page, 2013).
Product Designing and Development: A proper design of the product is very important
before launching it in the market. It is about deciding on the quality standard that can be used for
shape, packing and look of the product etc. The design of the product should be done in order to
attract more and more customers and it should be better than the competitor’s product.

Standardization and Grading: Standardization means the process of producing
products according to the standard set in order to achieve consistency and uniformity in products.
The quality, price and packaging should be the same. Grading means categorization of products
into different classes on the basis of various characteristics set by the company.
Branding: Every product requires a name to differentiate it from other products. Giving
name to a product is called branding and this help in increasing customers’ loyalty. A brand can
vary according to the segment of a company.
Pricing of the products: Pricing should be done by considering various factors. This is
the amount a customer needs to pay to buy the product. According to the general perception of
most of the customers, that if the price of a product is high, the demand will less and vice versa
(Wirtz, 2012).
Promotion: Promotion is done for making the customer aware about the product.
Promotion can be done through advertisement, door to door sample selling etc. It is done to
provide complete information about the product such as prices, uses, features.
Distribution channel: It is the function of storing and transportation of the products. The
function starts from selecting a warehouse where the products in bulk can be stored and
transporting them as and when required. Distribution channel helps in smooth delivery of the
products at various places.
Financing: In this function, the manager works in a way to provide various financing
facility to the retailers and distributors in order to gain customer loyalty and to retain them. Such
facility includes giving products on credit basis.
The marketing functions plays a vital role in maximizing the profitability. These functions
help the company to make loyal customer, expand distributor chain, survive in the competitive
market conditions, capture a large market share etc.
Inter-relation of various units functioning in KFC
The inter-relationship among different units of an organization is very important. In KFC,
the marketing department interrelates with other units of it such as production unit, human
resource, finance etc. Inter-relation provides a co-ordination between all the units working in a
company in order to achieve the goals of the company. Since KFC is big fast food restaurant

chain, it becomes essential to have synchronization in all the activities otherwise the internal
management could be failed, leaving the company in losses. Interrelationship of marketing
department with other department of KFC are described below:
Marketing and Finance: The marketing department perform their function to target the
desired customers thereby helping the finance department to make budgets regarding for
promotional activities. Increase in the number of customers will increase the sales which will
result in profits. The finance department has to account for the profits and also its utilization in
the activities of KFC (Clow and James, 2013). The marketing department will require the funds
for successful implementation of the plan, the fund can be allotted by finance department only.
Marketing and Human Resource: Marketing function is a process by which company
promotes its products and services. Promotional activities are done with a motive of attracting
the customers to the products and services. Companies like KFC requires good number of
personnel to perform these promotional activities effectively. Human resource department can
get the right person to this job.
Marketing and Production: These two departments work closely with each and are
interrelated. Marketing department gives the details about the requirement of the demands of
products to the production department. The right detail at the right time do not cause delay in
production thereby reducing costs and hours associated with wastage (Rossi, Allenby and
McCulloch, 2012).
Marketing and Research: Research department of KFC collects information about the
targeted market. This information is used to identify the demands, behavior of the buyers, market
conditions etc. All these information helps the marketing department to make plans and
strategies.
TASK 2
Marketing Mix
Basis KFC McDonalds
Product It is a fast food restaurant McD is also a fast food

chain that specializes in fried
chicken. The other products
offered by KFC are chicken
burgers, wraps, French fries,
soft drinks, salad etc.
company that specializes in
hamburger. It also serves
products like breakfast items,
soft drinks, milkshake, wraps
and desserts.
Price The prices of the KFC
products are high. It follows
market skimming pricing
strategy. It target the middle
upper class people (Pricing
strategy, 2017)
McDonald’s uses various
pricing techniques to keep the
price competitive. The prices
may vary according to the
number of other factors.
Place It has more than 300 outlets.
The business of KFC is based
on franchisee and company
run outlets. They also provide
the products through online
media.
The distribution strategies
vary country to country. They
offers home delivery in some
countries and many of the
outlets are open 24 hour a
day.
Promotions The promotional activities are
done by offering add-ons on
existing menu, gift coupons,
meal etc. The promotion is
done through LCD displays,
and it also does online and
television advertisements.
Mcd uses television,
newspapers, magazines,
internet and other media to
promote its products
(Brassington and Pettitt,
2013).
People The staff of KFC are trained
by the company itself. They
are required to be act
according to the KFC’s
guidelines.
The main objective of
Mcdonalds is to consider the
issues of employees and
customers. It believe to keep
customers happy so that they
provide good services to the
customers.

Process The process of ordering the
foods starts when the
customers visits the outlet and
they can also order online.
It uses many ways to deliver
the products ordered by the
customers. They maintains
transparency while making
the food.
Physical Evidence It is the physical outlet where
customers can visit. The
interior is designed in a
specific way as given by the
parent company. KFC uses
advance technology
equipment.
The outlets of McDs have
attractive interior and they
maintain clean and hygienic
interiors. The equipment used
are not that advanced.
TASK 3
Covered in PPT
CONCLUSIONS
From the above-mentioned report, it has been concluded that marketing department plays
an important role in overall success of the company. Proper implementation of marketing plans
and strategies contributes to company’s profitability. Further, the co-ordination among different
units is important for targeting the market. The marketing plans help the company to implement
the policies so that sales can be increased.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Dibb, S. and Simkin, L., 2013. Marketing essentials. Cengage Learning.
Pike, S., 2015. Destination marketing: essentials. Routledge.
Scarborough, N. M., 2016. Essentials of entrepreneurship and small business management.
Pearson.
Wirtz, J., 2012. Essentials of services marketing. FT Press.
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Page, K., 2013. Essentials of marketing. Oxford University Press.
Clow, K. E. and James, K. E., 2013. Essentials of marketing research: Putting research into
practice. Sage.
Rossi, P. E., Allenby, G. M. and McCulloch, R., 2012. Bayesian statistics and marketing. John
Wiley & Sons.
Brassington, F. and Pettitt, S., 2013. Essential of marketing.
Online
Pricing strategy. 2017. [online]. Available through:
<http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_KFC's_pricing_strategy>.