Marketing Strategies and Management

The provided assignment is about marketing strategies and management, focusing on the importance of marketing in McDonald's success. It compares the marketing mix tools used by different companies, including Hilton hotels and resorts. The document also discusses the preparation of a comprehensive marketing plan and its evaluation. References are provided from various books and journals, as well as online sources.

MARKETING ESSENTIALS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................1
P1 Key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function in McDonald's..............................1
P2 Roles and responsibilities of the marketing function in wider context .................................3
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................7
P3 Compare the ways in which different organisations apply the marketing mix to the
marketing planning process to achieve business objectives.......................................................7
LO 4..............................................................................................................................................11
P4 Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for an organisation.......................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is undertaking those activities or processes which creates the value of the
products and services of an organisation and is the management of building and maintaining
customers relationship. It is an important function of management within the company.
Marketing function includes advertising, building brand image of the company, delivering the
products' and services to the ultimate customers. In other words, it means making people aware
of the offerings in the market.
The present report has taken McDonald's and its marketing functions. McDonald's is an
American public company engaged in food industry, headquartered in Chicago with more than
36000 retails shops in around 100 countries. The study will cover roles and responsibilities of the
marketing, and how they relate to wider organisational context. It will also show the comparison
between the McDonald and its rivalry firm regarding their marketing mix strategies. Preparation
and evaluation of marketing plan will be covered in the present project report.
LO 1
P1 Key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function in McDonald's
Marketing holds a great significance in the McDonald's as this function creates the
customer base for the company, builds customer relationships, and brand image of the firm, it
promotes the business and helps in achieving organisational ultimate objective of customer
satisfaction. The roles and responsibilities of marketing function are given below:
Building brand image : McDonald's marketing department plays a key role in creating a
value of the products and services the company is offering in the market. It is the duty of the
marketing manager to know the current scenario of the market, its position in the industry, what
the competing firms are offerings, are their products of equivalent quality or better than its
products and services(Armstrong and et.al, 2015). The marketing manager then accordingly
prepares the different marketing strategies and tactics to adapt itself to the present demand of the
situation. Brand image after sometime becomes the focus of the marketing department around
which the department formulate its strategies.
Identifying the target customers:The marketing department identifies the particular
niche in the market to whom the products and services will be offered. This decision is taken
after conducting feasible studies, market researches. A marketing manager will try its offerings in
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the market segment to see the responses of the customers and then prepares the reports regarding
this and later on conclude the decision that whether the offerings are liked by the target
customers and it to be continue producing the products on large scale(Baker, 2014).
Identifying the customers preferences : It is one of the crucial responsibility of the
marketing department of McDonald's to know who are the customers and what they expect from
the company. Food industry comes with the challenge of ever changing customers preferences, so
knowing the customers and serving them according to their specifications will make them addict
to the company's offerings and in increase in the overall efficiency of the company and
eventually will result in increase in profitability of McDonald's. The data regarding the customers
tastes and preferences can be determined through various ways such as surveys, customer support
team within the organisation, using social networks in the market to precisely know the condition
of the markets domestically and internationally.
Coordination and cooperation : Coordination and cooperation with other departments in
the McDonald's and with other associated firms such as marketing agencies, digital media
partners, print media partners is the responsibility of the marketing department. A company like
McDonald's which is so giant and which is operating internationally is partnered with several
media partners, publishers, bloggers for an effective marketing of the company. The work and
objectives of these players should not override the overall mission of the company(Brady, 2014).
Marketing department should also coordinate with the other department by providing
them the necessary information and be cooperative with others in the organisation for ensuring
the smooth and seamless flow of work throughout the company.
Innovation:Innovation is the guarantor of success for an organisation. McDonald's
marketing department has always marked its importance and continuously apply innovation in it
marketing strategies. Since the customers' taste and preferences keeps on changes in reply of
which marketing manager uses innovation as tool for attracting more customers and satisfying the
existing ones. The manager not necessarily bring innovation in the entire offerings but sometimes
minute changes in the advertising, promotions and production techniques works great for the
company, as people want something new every time(De Mooij, 2018.).
Preparation of marketing budgets and managing it : It is the duty of the marketing
department of the company to prepare the marketing budgets which will be the framework within
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which the department will carry out its functions and operations. Budgets become the base for the
entire department according to which they work and the performance of each person in the
department is measured and evaluated against the standard figures. Efficient budgeting by the
marketing manager ensures that funds are available for each activity, promotions, huge
advertisement campaigns, conferences with customers, PR programs or for the internal day to day
operational requirements(Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014).
Formulating the strategies and policies: Marketing manager is responsible for
formulating the overall marketing strategies and policies for the company. Manager of
McDonald's drafts out the complete plan about how the marketing activities will be undertaken,
the objectives and mission for the department, rules and policies for achieving the targets,
complete analysis of the company by comparing them with the best players in the industry.
Strategies are prepared for the longer time and are made in such a way that it makes the company
cost effective in its marketing function. However, marketing manager is also responsible for
applying the different useful tactics for coping up the emergency needs of the markets.
The marketing manager of MacDonald's is held responsible for the failure or success of
its department. Manager ensures that the operations of the department are not varying from the
plans and budgets. Motivating the employees of department and influencing them to work more
passionately are some main duties of marketing manager of the organisation(Hudson and et.al,
2016).
P2 Roles and responsibilities of the marketing function in wider context
The roles and responsibilities of marketing function changes from general to more
specific when these are taken in wider organisational context. McDonald's is operating in such a
dynamic environment that it often faces market challenges such as cut throat competition from
the rivalry firms, changing consumers tastes and preferences, falling sales. There are times when
company wants to expand its business internationally where the marketing department takes all
the responsibilities of conducting the feasible studies that whether the expansion plans should be
undertaken or not.
 McDonald's when facing the intense competition in the market, marketing function helps
the company to efficiently give reply to its competitors. Marketing manager finds out the
competitors competitive advantages that has made them so efficient. The manager will
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compare the strength and weakness of the company with its competing firms using
various models such as Porter's Five, its SWOT analysis and will draw useful conclusions
from such findings. The innovating marketing strategies will be formulated by the
management(Katsikeas and et.al, 2016.).
 When the company faces the problem of declining sales trend, marketing function of the
McDonald's comes to the rescue. Marketing department uses various strategies for
improving the sales of the organisation. The use of more social media regarding selling of
the products and services will boost the sales, providing home delivery of the products to
the customers will give them easy access to the stores. Knowing the customers and
serving them according to their needs and specification will attract the customers and trust
level will be build in the customer's mind by offering them the best quality products
especially when the company is a food giant.
 Expansion plans of the McDonald's cannot be formed without the marketing function.
Marketing function include the market development strategies which consist of detailed
study of different international market scenario, legal and economical aspects of the
international locations are taken into consideration by marketing manager of the
company to see if the company fits to the laws of the proposed country and whether the
economic conditions supports the idea of company to expand. Other factors are also
considered by the marketing team of McDonald's such as culture of the proposed country,
customers preferences towards the fast foods(Malhotra, 2015).
The marketing function is interrelated with every function unit in the organisation.
Marketing department posses the market related information which is used by every department
of the company such as HR, production, finance, purchase and sales.
Production and marketing: these are interrelated in the way that production completely
relies on marketing department to know the type of quality products that are to be produced,
bringing more cost effective technology in the production process.
Finance and marketing: Marketing department can carry out its promotional and huge
advertisement campaigns only when the sufficient funds are available and which are approved by
the Chief Financial officer of the McDonald's.
Marketing and HR: It is the marketing function that promotes the company and built the
brand image which attracts the pool of talent workforce. The way marketing manager present the
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company to the public creates the impression on the potential workforce and the HR is provided
with abundant options to choose the best of all for the organisation. HR also provide the
information regarding what skills and specialists they need in the organisation by identifying the
jobs and required number of people to the marketing department. Marketing team then designs
the whole procedure of attracting the skilled people through promoting the company, the working
culture of the McDonald's and benefits, perks of working in the company are highlighted in the
promotional events, advertising campaigns, etc.
Marketing with sales and purchases: Marketing function determines the best supply
chain for the purchasing department to purchase the different raw materials from the most
reliable and cost effective source. Sales department are provided with the potential customers,
clients by the marketing department by grabbing the attentions of the people(Baker, 2014)
The importance of interrelation between the various departments of McDonald's can be
seen through points given below:
 It built trust between the departments of the company as every department is dependent
on other and cooperation between them ensures mutual respect for each other.
Interrelation with in the organisation ensures the smooth flow of information between the
different departments which in turn provide the best products and services to the
customers and ultimately more customer loyalty.
 Quality services to the customers are provided by the organisation by having an effective
communication channels between the different departments. For instance, IT department
if fails to inform the production departments that complains are registering from the
customers regarding the quality of goods, production department will keep on producing
the types of products which does not meet the customer expectation. This will hamper the
customer satisfaction in the event of lack of proper coordination between the departments.
 Interrelationships between the different units of the McDonald's helps in avoiding the
conflicts and disputes among them. Reliance of one unit over other may sometimes cause
conflicts among the different departments but an efficient cooperation and coordination
will eliminate such things in the organisation.
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 The importance of interrelations between the departments is so vital that it increases the
overall efficiency of the company. For example, when production department is not
prepared for the extra ordinary events in the boom period but the marketing department is
conducting aggressive advertisement activities for creating the demand of the products
and services can cause serious damage to organisational productivity. And when the boom
period comes, sale department losses the business because of the inability of production
department to cope up the extra demand will create the chaos in the company and the
organisation's overall efficiency and profitability will suffer(The Importance of
Communication Between Different Departments in an Organization, 2018).
Marketing function has following key elements which are different departments functions and
they are interrelated with each other in the organisation. The key elements are:
 Pricing the products in a such a way that the consumers are willing to pay. A detailed
analysis is important to find out the consumers' willingness of buying a particular product
of McDonald's. Overpricing and under pricing of the products and services can lead to
the serious damages for the organisation. For example while fixing the prices of the
products cost accounting department also comes together as they know the cost of each
unit and the marketing team knows the consumers' willingness to pay a sum of value for
that product.
 The other key element is product of the company. Marketing is concerned with
identifying the right kind of product for the target audience. Marketing department of
McDonald's determines the products that are to be produced considering the customers
preferences, needs and requirements(De Mooij, 2018).
 Marketing department is focussed on promoting the business of the McDonald's through
various promotional tools such as advertising on tv, radio, magazine etc. The use of
social sites also fulfils the objectives of marketing manager of making people aware of
the brand.
 Delivering the final products to the customers is another key element of marketing
function. Making available the products and services of company is one of the objective
of a marketing functions so that customers get the experience of using the products for
which they have paid the value.
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
LO 2
P3 Compare the ways in which different organisations apply the marketing mix to the marketing
planning process to achieve business objectives
Marketing mix : the term marketing mix refers to a foundation modal or a marketing tools
which is consisted of putting right product or right combination of product at right place, at right
time and also at right price. It has some broad levels namely: product, price, place and
time(Ebert, 2011).
In current practices, marketing mix involves 7P's which is an extended form of 4P's of
marketing mix. Compression of 7P's of marketing mix of McDonald with Hilton hotels and
resorts are as under:
Basis McDonald Hilton hotel and resorts
Product  McDonald provides both
vegetarian and non
vegetarian food product
namely hamburger, happy
meal, egg mcmuffins etc. to
its customer as it focuses on
both kind of customers.
Company also focuses on
children hence it gives toys
with its product too.
Nowadays customers are
more health conscious in
this context McDonald
started making diet concern
products as well. McDonald
also provide its product to
its customer via internet for
 As the name of company
says it all, Hilton hotels
and resorts provides all
the facilities related to
hotels to its customer.
Continental foods, thai
foods are main products
of hotel. The service of
company includes
wedding, meeting, special
events, banquet services
etc. it also provide room,
lounges, retail facilities,
swimming pool and other
facilities to its customers.
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the sake of technological
advancement.
Place  McDonald is an
international brand therefore
it has its work place in many
countries like US, Canada,
India, Puerto etc. Mainly
McDonald has spread its
business worldwide it covers
almost every big cities of the
country in which it has its
business. McDonald have its
shops in both residential
areas and in big malls to
cover all the customers of
the city(Wilson, 2014).
 Hilton hotels and resorts
is also a global company.
It has spread its business
in more than 100
countries namely Algeria,
Aruba, Austria, India, etc.
It has placed its business
in internet as well. It gives
facility to its customer to
book the room or the
hotel via internet for
covering all the
customers, it has made its
own app for both iPhone
users and android users as
well.
Process  McDonald manufactures
food for its customers. Over
the time, McDonald has
invented more efficient
equipment for its food
manufacturing process. It
also provided licensed
training first to its
employees so that its quality
of product could not be
reduced. To attract more and
more customers it keeps
 Company has a consistent
process for the services
for customers in all over
the world. It adopts a
supply chain
management, distribution
system, to flow consistent
services without hurdle.
This strategy is resulting
in making the brand as a
leading brand.
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changing its packaging, way
of serving its customers to
make them more effective
and attractive to catch the
attention of consumers.
Physical evidence  Physical evidence refers to
the physical appearance of
the company. McDonald
concerns its physical
appearance, location,
maintenance of its building,
its staff members, etc. for
the purpose of physical
evidence purpose. It
frequently works for making
all these things more
attractive and easy
approachable for every
customer to catch maximum
attention of its customers.
Providing a sound interior,
good environment, are some
main physical evidences of
McDonald.
 Hilton hotels & resorts
comes into most leading
hotels when it comes
upon physical evidence.
Company also have an
attractive app for
attracting customers. it
provides the best quality
of amenities like light,
colour, space etc. which
have a great impact on
impression over
customers.
People  People includes both
employees and customers of
the organisation. McDonald
make strategies to make its
employees more efficient.
For this purpose it satisfies
 Target customer of the
company is businesses
working all over the
world. It focuses on
providing the best
facilities to its loyal
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all the needs of employees
in order to provide them
more job satisfaction and
provide a healthy
environment within the
organisation. McDonald also
do its best to fully satisfy
their needs and demands as
it believes that customer
always comes first. For this
purpose company tries to
provide more attractive,
faster and consumer friendly
services to its customers.
customers and also giving
the best satisfaction to its
workers.
Promotion  McDonald targets all types
of customers mainly
teenagers and children.
Company advertise itself on
different media like
television, radio, internet,
YouTube etc. to cover the
customers all over the
world. Company also uses
ways like templates, banners
advertisement in different
newspapers, etc.
 For promotional strategy,
Hilton hotels and industry
have adopted various
promotional strategies
like sales promotion,
product and service
promotion, customer
relationship promotion
etc. in all over the world
in order to promote its
brand in market.
(Strandvik. and Heinonen,
2015).
Price  As the company mainly
focuses on teenagers and
children, McDonald have
 Hilton hotels and resorts
has divided its facilities
into 4 categories for the
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quite affordable price for its
product. It tries to provide
the best quality of product
with minimum price to make
itself affordable for every
customer to catch maximum
market share(Ryan, 2016).
Mainly it follows cost plus
pricing strategies for
deciding the price of
product.
sake of covering each
category of customers. As
per company's strategy,
there are 4 levels namely
economy, penetration, and
skimming, premium
pricing strategies. All the
pricing strategies have
different price level. It
enables the customer to
choose a kind of facility
which his pocket allows.
Through this strategy,
Hilton hotels and resorts
have become capable of
catching all kind of
customers.
LO 4
P4 Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for an organisation.
In order to increase the capacity of the organisation, McDonald needs to create best
marketing plan for the company. Company needs to understand that the marketing plan can either
have negative effect or positive effect over the business. Therefore, company needs to have a
quality marketing plan for potential growth of the organisation.
Produce and evaluation of a basic marketing plans contains the following steps:
 Executive summary: before adopting any marketing plan, McDonald needs to make a
summary of different plans and then it needs to evaluate all the summaries carefully for
the sake of taking decision about which plan will be perfect for the company's potential
growth. (Lukito, Lukito. and Arifin, 2015).
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 Objective:: mission of the company shows the commercial logic of the business of
organisation. McDonald needs to fix it mission for achievement of its set objectives first
before evaluating its marketing plans. Vision of the company is to established its brand as
a well known brand in all over the world. On the other hand, company has a mission to
increase its sale, enhance profitability and cover large amount of market. marketing
manager of the organisation must understand the objectives of the organisation. This step
is most important for development of marketing plans as company can not adopt any
marketing plan randomly.
Main objective of McDonald is to increase its sale of foods by 20% till the end of
year 2019. Hence, it has to choose the best marketing plans which matches and have
power to fulfil organisational objective of enhancement of its sale within set period of
time.
 Marketing mix: marketing needs to be accordance with the policies and standards of the
company. McDonald have policy is to serve the best quality of food to its customer at
minimum price. The marketing plan of the company should be in such way so that it
could not reduce the policies & standard i.e. to provide best fast delivery within minimum
time at least price to attract maximum number of customers. Rather, they must be
enhanced by the marketing plan(Baines., Fill and Page, 2013). Cost plus pricing strategy,
consumer satisfaction, having the best quality of product are some marketing mix
strategies adopted by the company.
 Situational analysis: a situational analysis should be done after deciding the mission &
vision of the company. It refers to the methods used by the managers for the purpose of
analysing environment of the organisation. Situational analysis can be done by analysing
strength and weaknesses of the company.
Strength
Strong point of the company is that it has spread its business in many countries
and selling affordable products in the market in order to attract large no. of
customer.
Threats
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On the other hand, company is having threat of its competitors. Recently many
brands has come to the market which is increasing the competition of McDonald
and market share as well. Marketing plan of McDonald should have capacity to
overcome from its threats effectively.
Weaknesses
McDonald is targeting youths only. It does not focus on middle age or old age
people. Due to this, it can not attract the customer of middle and old age, and it is
losing the opportunities to attract more customers toward the brand.
Opportunities
Through market study McDonald get to know that it has an opportunity to grab
more market share if it adopts more technical advancement in the business. For
this it can make the products available for the customer on different webside.
 Budget: it is an important step for the company to set a marketing budget first. As the
marketing budget must be within capacity of the business. If company adopts any budget
which is out of the pocket of business, company will fail to implement it effectively. It
may result in failure of the organisation. budget of the company should be evaluated
before selecting plan of the company. As if the selected plan is over the budget, it can't be
followed effectively which could result in failure of the company. Recently McDonald
has set the budget as under:
Sale $10000
Raw material cost $3000
Administration cost $1000
Labour charges $2000
Profit $4000
 STP: it is segmentation, targeting & positioning. McDonald wants to have top position in
the market and target maximum amount of customers. All these should be analysed by
McDonald before selecting the best marketing plan for the company. McDonald is
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targeting teenagers and children as their target customers. McDonald addopts cost
positioning strategy for the business. It adopts demographic segments as through it brand
can differentiate customer on the basis of income, sex, and age.
 Monitoring and control: company uses consumer satisfaction monitoring strategy in the
business to enhance the customer satisfaction and make the brand more attractive. On
other hand, brand adopts cost control strategy which help it to gain the objective with
minimum cost.
CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it has been concluded that marketing is an indispensable
function of management in McDonald's. It was summarized from the study that marketing
department plays a crucial role in building the brand and maintaining the relationships with the
customers which has led the company to reach heights of success in domestic as well as in
international markets. The importance of the management was understood in the report. The
study covered the comparison of McDonald's marketing strategies with the Hilton hotels and
resorts which gave the conclusions that different companies uses marketing mix tools in such a
way that it meets their business requirements such as its structure, its target audience, funds
available. A marketing plan for the company was also developed in the report and it was
evaluated which showed the different stages in the preparation of a comprehensive marketing
plan.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Armstrong, G and et.al, 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Page, K., 2013. Essentials of marketing. Oxford University Press.
Baker, M. J., 2014. Marketing strategy and management. Macmillan International Higher
Education.
Brady, D.L., 2014. Essentials of international marketing. Routledge.
De Mooij, M., 2018. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes.
SAGE Publications Limited.
Ebert, R. J., 2011. Business essentials. Pearson Education.
Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand
equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-
132). Springer, New York, NY.
Hudson, S and et.al, 2016. The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand
relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing
behaviors. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(1), pp.27-41.
Katsikeas, C. S and et.al, 2016. Assessing performance outcomes in marketing. Journal of
Marketing, 80(2), pp.1-20.
Lukito, R. B., Lukito, C. and Arifin, D., 2015. Implementation Techniques of Search Engine
Optimization in Marketing Strategies Through the Internet. Journal of Computer
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Malhotra, N. K., 2015. Essentials of marketing research: A hands-on orientation. Essex:
Pearson.
Ryan, D., 2016. Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital
generation. Kogan Page Publishers.
Strandvik, T. and Heinonen, K., 2015. Essentials of customer dominant logic. The Nordic School,
Service Marketing and Management for the Future, pp.111-127.
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Wilson, J., 2014. Essentials of business research: A guide to doing your research project. Sage.
Online
The Importance of Communication Between Different Departments in an Organization.2018.
[online]. Available through <https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-
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