Brand and Product Management: Strategies for McDonalds

This article discusses the effective strategies used by McDonalds in brand and product management. It covers topics such as delivering benefits that customers desire, staying relevant, having an effective pricing strategy, being properly positioned, consistent, having a sensible brand portfolio and hierarchy, applying full repertoire of overall marketing to build equity, understanding what it means to its consumers, and being given proper support and sustained in the long-run.

Running head: BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Authors Note:

1BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Answer1: Brand excels in delivering benefits that the customer’s desire:......................................2
Answers 2: Brand stays relevant:....................................................................................................3
Answer 3: Effective pricing strategy:..............................................................................................3
Answer 4: Brand is properly positioned..........................................................................................4
Answer 5: Brand is consistent.........................................................................................................5
Answer 6: Brand portfolio and hierarchy make sense:....................................................................6
Answer 7: Brand coordinates applies full repertoire of the overall marketing to build equity.......7
Answer 8: brand understands what it means to its consumers........................................................8
Answer 9: Brand is also given proper support and sustained in the long-run.................................9
Answer 10: McDonalds monitors efficiently the sources of brand equity......................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................11

2BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Answer1: Brand excels in delivering benefits that the customer’s desire:
Brand report card is a technique that is used by the organizations to audit the strengths
and weaknesses of a certain product characteristics and further comparing it with the strong
brand in the same product category (Hbr.org 2018). McDonalds was a pioneer fast food industry
and the brand excels in delivering customers all such benefits that the customers truly desire.
McDonalds became one of the fastest leaders in the fast food industry and thus keeps their focus
strong on the customer services. This also helps in bringing the way in which the product is
projected and the ways in which he customer accepts it (Brexendorf, Bayus and Keller 2015).
McDonalds helps in changing the customer’s brand. The organization has also a strict focus on
operating efficiently and at all different levels of the organization so that the costs can be kept
competitive within the market.
Mc Donald’s clearly understand what the customers actually want and delivering the
same. The main success of the organization is to lay major emphasis on the satisfaction of the
customers. The staffs representing McDonalds is encouraged to be very friendly and are taught
to provide this services with a smile. The organization focuses on customer satisfaction by
providing hot foods, short wait-times and excellent services. The operational competitive
strategy of McDonalds focuses on speed, cost and nutrition. Their main priority is to make the
customers really happy. The organization finds various techniques to make the consumers highly
satisfied with their fast food services. Higher quality products are provided to their customers.
They have also a very strict regiment for food and safety quality standards. Mc Donald’s has the
largest share that exist in the fast food industry and 10% global share.

3BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Answers 2: Brand stays relevant:
McDonalds stays relevant with its customers by introducing varieties of menus such as
happy meals, drive –in and drive through besides healthy meals (Mcdonalds.com. 2018). In
strong brands such as Mc Donald’s brand equity is linked to both the actual quality for the
services and products and also to the different intangible factors. Without losing sights of the
core strength for the products, McDonalds tries to stays on the top-most edge in the product
arena. It is highly important to keep pace with the customer’s preferences requirements and is
also subjected to change in a periodic manner and is thus relevant with its customer. When the
potential customers purchase any product from Mc Donald’s, the customers exchanges the prices
to obtain value in return.
McDonalds with the help of its brand innovation in the form of McBike helps in
connecting with the target audiences. McBikes helps in keeping the track of their customers and
also helps in retaining an affinity with the customer’s lives. Identification of the current trends
also helps in crucial role in their lives and also should connect them to the brand. The right blend
of quality for the product, design, cost, features and prices is actually difficult to achieve but is
quite worthy for the efforts involved.
Answer 3: Effective pricing strategy:
Customer value based pricing is setting the price that is based on buyer’s perception for
all the values. McDonalds can design its products and initiate a marketing program and then sets
its price. Price is a crucial part of marketing mix and is further followed by various marketing
mix decisions. The pricing strategy is mainly based on the customer’s perception of value and is

4BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
good. Mc Donald’s is recently addressing new relevance problems that address all the issues
present in past. McWrap that is a fresh sandwich wrap contains vegetables such as lettuce and
cucumbers. Mc. Donald’s also faces success that addresses various other issues that are relevant
in the past. Many of the products that are originated are generally in frozen form or are either
pre-formed.
Effective consumer value based pricing includes the values the consumers generally
received for the products. The company first assesses the needs and value perceptions of its
customers. Later on a target price is set that is completely based on the consumer perception of
values. When the potential customers purchase any product from Mc Donald’s, the customers
exchanges the prices to obtain value in return. Effective pricing should also focus on all the value
for the product that is ultimately provided to the customers. The organization also assesses the
needs of the customers and value perception. Mc Donald’s holds the largest market share in the
fast food industry in all over America. Several pricing strategies like price bundling are applied.
The concept of offering combination of different varieties of products helps in reducing the
overall price. This further encourages all the customers to buy several products that are known as
price bundling in the form of Happy Meal ’and‘ Big Mac meal. McDonalds also uses
psychological pricing technique to attract the potential customers with items costing 99p.
Answer 4: Brand is properly positioned
Strategic positioning is applied by McDonalds to increase the sales of the organization or
performing the same activity in a different manner. Through proper brand positioning a company
becomes a leading performer within the industry. The brand positioning for McDonalds is
completely based on its customer base. It focuses on teenagers and children mostly as their

5BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
potential target customers. It’s positioning and strategy is directed to satisfy this market sector.
McDonalds has proved itself to be a friendly low cost restaurant within the fast food business.
The company has a low cost strategy and narrow scope for the customer base strategy. In the
current times, the firm has also broadened its scope to appeal the customers. In the recent times,
due to decrease in sales, the company has launched various ways to make its menu healthier for
their customers. Major focus is led on cutting the delivering time for the products and cutting the
product’s cost. Modern and advanced techniques are further used to make the job more
convenient. This further focuses on lowering down the cost of food and delivery time. Effective
strategy is applied in each and every operational activities of the business. This strategy is known
throughout all its business operation.
Answer 5: Brand is consistent
McDonalds has been able to position itself on the fore front among all the fast-food
technology. It has also set the standards required for the rest of the industry. McDonalds is
considered to be one of the most successful brands on the planet and is also successful in all of
its operational areas and has proved its consistency and efficiency. The fast food industry is
expanding at a great extent and McDonalds initiate various techniques to gain the competitive
advantages (Homburg, Schwemmle and Kuehnl 2015). The fast food company has bought
organic and healthy food in the market along with the fast foods. It is currently ranked to be one
of the most important brands in all over the world and is also among the most frequently
restaurants.
It has also been able to serve in more than 100 countries and millions of customers
purchase the products every day. The branding success of McDonald’s is undeniable. The major

6BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
key element behind the marketing success and branding of marketing is experimentation and
segmentation. McDonalds has also been able it maintains its brand success at an international
level (Nyadzayo and Khajehzadeh 2016). The marketing strategy of the organization mostly
relies on the uniformity of its products. Positioning the products and services to attract the target
audience is necessary by focusing the marketing efforts on segmentation. Target marketing is the
major key to success of McDonalds and through brand recognizition it has able to expand its
business profitability.
Answer 6: Brand portfolio and hierarchy make sense:
Various organizations do not have only one brand but creates and retains varieties of
brands for various market segments. Brand act as an umbrella for various market segment and is
also holds different power. At all level of hierarchy, brand contributes to the overall equity of
portfolio through their ability to make the customers aware about all the products and leads to
create favorable association with them. Each brand has also its own boundaries that prevent the
overlapping of two brands within a same portfolio. McDonalds has relatively large number of
strong connections that can be described in three different levels for the customer connection,
this includes functional, higher-order emotional and brand differentiation (Baker, Donthu and
Kumar 2016). McDonalds gathers the insights of the market to properly understand the needs of
the customer, values, lifestyle and buying behavior of its customers. Technology has been able to
change the way through which a consumer search for their products and services.
Brand portfolio strategy of McDonalds enables the firm to maximize market coverage
and also reduces the brand overlap through deployment, effective creation and managing
multiple brands within an organization. This also serves the brand to effectively target all the

7BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
major key segments within the organization (Keller, 2017). The firm works together to increase
the sales of the organization instead of competing against each other for the attention of their
customers. Effective brand portfolio and its connection with the hierarchical level results in
obtaining a clear idea about the want for the customer need, want and desire.
Answer 7: Brand coordinates applies full repertoire of the overall marketing to build
equity
A brand is usually made up of various market levels that can easily be trademarked in the
form of symbols, logos, slogans and packaging. Brands that are strong in the market mix and
match the elements that enable them to perform various brands related functions. This leads to
reinforce or enhance the brand’s consumer awareness and its image that help them to protect the
brand in both legal and competitive. The Managers also appreciates the particular roles for all the
various marketing activities that help in building the brand equity for the organization (Chandon,
Laurent and Valette-Florence 2016).
McDonalds makes excellent use of its overall marketing activities that includes
promotions, media advertizing and sponsorship. The organization also reinforces its major key
values for its originality, high quality products and efficient services. Managers plays a crucial
role in reinforcing or enhancing consumer awareness about the new products and helps them to
protect the organization’s brand in a both competitive and legal. They provide detailed
information related to the product that shows the product requirement for whom and when.
Moreover, an organization brand is also associated with the place, price and person so that the
brand image for the product can be refined or enhanced. McDonald’s uses ‘traditional
advertizing techniques` that is best suited for the ‘pull functions’ so that consumer demand is

8BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
increased for a particular or given product. This also leads to pushing the products through their
distributors. Moreover, brand makes effective use of all of its resources and takes adequate
measure to ensure that brand essence is similar for all the activities.
Answer 8: brand understands what it means to its consumers
McDonalds clearly understands the relevance of brand image to its potential customers.
Through efficient technologies, the companies can easily order food with the help of Have
Happy Meal, Mcmaccas and giving toys to the consumers. Brand image and all of its different
perceptions, attitudes and beliefs that the target customers associate with company. Brand
manager is efficient enough to understand the importance of the brand value and making it aware
to the customers. There is a seen improvement in the perception of the consumers for the brands
that has helped it to post its best sales figures in the last six years. Operational metrics and brand
perception goes hand in hand. The firm have been able to make improvement in their menu and
also maintain effective communication with their employees. They are also heading and moving
towards a direction that the customers wants them to go. McDonald’s has focused highly on
modernizing the restaurants in the current years and have also introduced the concept of re-
branding.. The brand value of McDonalds has increased with effective and sophisticated online
platform had source its branding and marketing talent from across the world. In the recent era of
technology, customers focuses on faster delivery, better values and better brand from the
organization . McDonalds should work accordingly with all the technologies and concept so that
the long-term profitability and brand image can be improved (Godey et al. 2016). McDonalds
has adopted an effective global marketing strategy and the organization has also adopted various
measures to provide maximum satisfaction to their customers

9BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Answer 9: Brand is also given proper support and sustained in the long-run
Brand equity for an organization should be carefully constructed. McDonalds is still
thriving and is a powerful international brand. The major strategic that the firm uses in tailoring
its advertisement is to a particular demographics. McDonald has used demographic segmentation
strategy where the major parameter is age. The major target segments are youth, children, and
young urban family. To attract children, McDonalds has used Happy Meal and each children are
gifted a toy, thus using it as a strategy to retain their customers in the long-run.
McDonald practices a comprehensive framework for monitoring and training its
franchises so that they are adhered to the services, value and quality propositions that is offered
by their customers. A sophisticated supplier distribution system and networked operation is used
that enables the company to achieve consistent quality and product taste. The brand name of the
organization is so strong that it brings high income to the organization and also fulfils all the
expectation of its purchaser. The brand excels in truly delivering all the benefits that area truly
desired by the consumers. Proper support is given to the brand that is supported and sustained
over the long-run by the organization. McDonald’s brand name is supported in the long-run by
the organization through by effective in investing in the research and also for the long-term
development for their marketing programs. This helps in reducing risk, simplifying customer
decisions and also establishing expectations to crate strong brand image of the organization.
Answer 10: McDonalds monitors efficiently the sources of brand equity
Effective and strong brands usually make frequent and effective use of detailed brand
audits. McDonalds designed their brand audits that include the detailed internal description about
the marketing of the brand also known as brand inventory. McDonalds uses brand audits to

10BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
obtain a clear picture about the products and services that are offered and furthermore it’s
branding and marketing strategy. Quantitative measures are been applied to track the information
related to the customers behaviors, attitudes and perceptions. The mangers of McDonalds use
brand audits and tracking that specifies the major outcomes and also includes the latest findings
that is gathered by the organization in an annual basis (Schivinski and Dabrowski 2015). The
brand equity report issued by the management does not only describe the happenings of the
brands but also provides the reasons behind it.
In the recent scenario, McDonalds has been able to revamp its entire kitchen and serving
fresh products with high quality to their customers. McDonalds ‘Make Your Own’ menu
approach is determining its brand value association. From the perspectives of a brand asst, it is
reassuring to view the descriptor like ‘The Golden Arches’ that has created a connection of the
customers between the brand and its identity. Effective brand and product management that has
set up the competitive brand management.

11BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
References:
Baker, A.M., Donthu, N. and Kumar, V., 2016. Investigating how word-of-mouth conversations
about brands influence purchase and retransmission intentions. Journal of Marketing
Research, 53(2), pp.225-239.
Baldus, B.J., Voorhees, C. and Calantone, R., 2015. Online brand community engagement: Scale
development and validation. Journal of Business Research, 68(5), pp.978-985.
Brones, F., de Carvalho, M.M. and de Senzi Zancul, E., 2014. Ecodesign in project management:
a missing link for the integration of sustainability in product development?. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 80, pp.106-118.
Chandon, J.L., Laurent, G. and Valette-Florence, P., 2016. Pursuing the concept of luxury:
Introduction to the JBR Special Issue on “Luxury Marketing from Tradition to
Innovation”. Journal of Business Research, 69(1), pp.299-303.
Davcik, N.S. and Sharma, P., 2015. Impact of product differentiation, marketing investments and
brand equity on pricing strategies: A brand level investigation. European Journal of
Marketing, 49(5/6), pp.760-781.
Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C. and Morgan-Thomas, A., 2015. Consumer engagement in online
brand communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand
Management, 24(1), pp.28-42.

12BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Godey, B., Manthiou, A., Pederzoli, D., Rokka, J., Aiello, G., Donvito, R. and Singh, R., 2016.
Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity and consumer
behavior. Journal of business research, 69(12), pp.5833-5841.
Homburg, C., Jozić, D. and Kuehnl, C., 2017. Customer experience management: toward
implementing an evolving marketing concept. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 45(3), pp.377-401.
Homburg, C., Schwemmle, M. and Kuehnl, C., 2015. New product design: Concept,
measurement, and consequences. Journal of Marketing, 79(3), pp.41-56.
Hbr.org 2018. The Brand Report Card. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at:
https://hbr.org/2000/01/the-brand-report-card [Accessed 24 Apr. 2018].
Kapferer, J.N., 2017. Managing luxury brands. In Advances in Luxury Brand Management (pp.
235-249). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Keller, K.L., 2017. Managing the growth tradeoff: Challenges and opportunities in luxury
branding. In Advances in Luxury Brand Management (pp. 179-198). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Kozlowski, A., Searcy, C. and Bardecki, M., 2015. Corporate sustainability reporting in the
apparel industry: an analysis of indicators disclosed. International Journal of Productivity and
Performance Management, 64(3), pp.377-397.
Kumar, M., Townsend, J.D. and Vorhies, D.W., 2015. Enhancing consumers' affection for a
brand using product design. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(5), pp.716-730.

13BRAND AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Lieven, T., Grohmann, B., Herrmann, A., Landwehr, J.R. and Van Tilburg, M., 2015. The effect
of brand design on brand gender perceptions and brand preference. European Journal of
Marketing, 49(1/2), pp.146-169.
Mcdonalds.com. 2018. McDonald's: Burgers, Fries & More. Quality Ingredients. Retrieved from
https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us.html
Nyadzayo, M.W. and Khajehzadeh, S., 2016. The antecedents of customer loyalty: A moderated
mediation model of customer relationship management quality and brand image. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services, 30, pp.262-270.
Olsen, M.C., Slotegraaf, R.J. and Chandukala, S.R., 2014. Green claims and message frames:
how green new products change brand attitude. Journal of Marketing, 78(5), pp.119-137.
Pappu, R. and Quester, P.G., 2016. How does brand innovativeness affect brand
loyalty?. European Journal of Marketing, 50(1/2), pp.2-28.
Ponnam, A. and Balaji, M.S., 2015. Investigating the effects of product innovation and
ingredient branding strategies on brand equity of food products. British Food Journal, 117(2),
pp.523-537.
Schivinski, B. and Dabrowski, D., 2015. The impact of brand communication on brand equity
through Facebook. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 9(1), pp.31-53.