McDonald's Marketing Essentials: A Comprehensive Analysis and Marketing Plan

MARKETING ESSENTIALS

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 2
TASK 01.......................................................................................................................................... 3
P1 KEY ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MARKETING FUNCTION IN THE MCDONALD’S. .3
M1 ANALYSIS OF ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MARKETING FUNCTION OF
MCDONALD’S.............................................................................................................................7
P2 ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF MARKETING RELATE TO THE WIDER ORGANIZATIONAL
CONTEXT.................................................................................................................................... 8
M2 INTERRELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MARKETING AND OTHER FUNCTIONAL...........................9
UNITS FOR MCDONALDS............................................................................................................9
TASK 02........................................................................................................................................ 10
P3 WAYS IN WHICH MCDONALD’S APPLIES MARKETING MIX TO THE MARKETING PLANNING
PROCESS TO ACHIEVE BUSINESS OBJECTIVES..........................................................................10
M3 TACTICS APPLIED BY MCDONALD’S TO DEMONSTRATE HOW BUSINESS OBJECTIVES CAN
BE ACHIEVED............................................................................................................................14
TASK 03........................................................................................................................................ 16
P4 & M4 MARKETING PLAN FOR MCDONALD’S.......................................................................16
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................... 21
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................22
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INTRODUCTION
For every business that focuses on providing best services and products to their customers and
at the same time maintain sustainable growth, requires to focus on its marketing function.
Since it can be considered as a single efficient function in the business on which work of every
department is dependent. Even if the entire department performs productively, it will be of no
use if the marketing function fails to perform their task. It has more responsibility than
advertising and promoting the product. For the given assignment, McDonald's is taken into
consideration; and the key roles and responsibilities of McDonald's is explained and analysed in
the given assignment. Additionally, the interrelationship of the marketing department with
other business function of McDonald's is explained and analysed (Baker, 2016).
Later the marketing mix and tactics applied by the McDonald has been compared and evaluated
to get a better understanding of how business objectives can be achieved. Lastly, based on the
analysis, a detailed coherent based marketing plan for McDonald’s is prepared that focus on
increasing the customer’s value.
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TASK 01
P1 KEY ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MARKETING FUNCTION IN THE
MCDONALD’S
Marketing function in a multinational organization like McDonald’s have several roles other
than promoting the products offered by them. Tasks performed by the marketing function of
the McDonald’s determine the upcoming organizational strategies and product. Based on the
report provided by the marketing department, all other departments make the future
strategies (Kerzner, and Kerzner, 2017). Roles of the marketing function in McDonald’s listed
below:
MARKET RESEARCH
The primary task of the marketing function of McDonald’s is to analyse that market, this
includes, determining the requirement of the customers, competitor’s organizational strategies,
average earning and expenditure criteria of the customers, and much more. All this factors
determine the organizational strategy followed by the company in that region. This research
also helps in determining the company’s and competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, through
which they can focus on eliminating all the drawbacks (Armstrong, et al., 2015).
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Marketing function determines the requirement s and needs of the customers through which
the products can be varied. For instance, a hamburger available at USA and UK are
comparatively bigger than that available in China; this is because of the diet difference in these
regions (Kerzner, and Kerzner, 2017).
ADVERTISEMENT AND PROMOTION
After product development, it is required to promote and advertise the product to generate
awareness among people about the product; this responsibility lies in the range of marketing
function. As per their analysis and targeted segment, they form several strategies to create
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awareness about the products and services and try to increase the sales of the business.
Although they are assigned limited funds from the financial department for promotion, in which
they have to manage all the required tasks (Armstrong, et al., 2015).
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Another role of the marketing department is to generate and create a new market for the
business to expand. This can be done by advertisement through social media or by setting
booths; their promotion they attract potential customers, this gives the opportunity to the sales
department to convince them is buying the product (McDonald and Wilson, 2016).
The marketing department can be considered as the key function of the McDonald’s since it
deals with different tasks of several departments in the organization. Based on this, their
responsibilities gradually increases that are clearly defined below:
CUSTOMER CENTRIC
For ensuring sustainable growth, any business must be customer-centric and offer based on the
demands of their targeted segment. It is the responsibility of the marketing function of
McDonald has to understand the demand of their customers in different regions; since the
company operates in various regions, the demand and requirement of the customers vary
significantly. They follow two approaches, intrinsic, in which analyse the data collected from the
customer services and sales department; and extrinsic approach, where they conduct surveys
and take feedbacks direct from their customers for the analysis (McDonald and Wilson, 2016).
ANALYSING COMPETITIONS
They are also responsible for analysing their competitor’s strategies and acting on its basis.
Knowing your opponents moves helps in forming an effective strategy and McDonald’s
understand this. Their marketing function, analyse the market of every country they operate in
and analyse local an well as multinational competitors. For instance, with the increasing
popularity of KFC chicken burgers in several countries, McDonald’s decided to enhance their
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menu by offering chicken Burger; this leads to tough competition to their opponents
(McDONALD, 2016).
BRAND IMAGE
The popularity of the business is dependent on the way customer sees the organization, a
strong brand name results in loyal customers, that eventually increases the profit of the
business like McDonald’s. Its marketing department is responsible for tackling the occasional
negative publicity in different regions where they operate and maintain brand’s image.
Additionally, they also handle the way customer sees the company; as per a survey conducted
in the UK, it was evaluated that, 44% people view McDonald's as convenient, while 42%
describes it as a family. Their marketing department maintains this positive image (Statista,
2015).
Figure 1: McDonald's Brand Image in the UK
[Source: Statista 2015]
FINDING PARTNERS
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