Marketing Strategy for McDonald's: Balancing Innovation and Consistent Experience

This report discusses the problem statement, research, solutions, and outcomes for McDonald's marketing strategy. It suggests using social media marketing and good leadership to balance innovation and consistent experience. The report highlights the importance of marketing in promoting and communicating the offerings of a business.

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Problem Statement......................................................................................................................3
Research......................................................................................................................................4
Solutions......................................................................................................................................5
Outcomes.....................................................................................................................................6
Handover ....................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Marketing plays a pivotal role in the companies as it helps in promoting and
communication the offering of the business. There are different types of marketing strategy
which can be opted by the businesses in order to reach the large audience in short span of time
(Handoyo, Nurdyansyah and Haryanto, 2020). the company chosen for this report is
McDonald's, a leading multinational fast food company which is headquartered in Chicago,
USA. This report will cover the problem statement, method of research, its solution and the
outcome from it.
MAIN BODY
Problem Statement
Background
McDonald's is the multinational fast food company which was founded in the year 1940.
it is headquartered in Chicago, USA. It is best known for the hamburgers, French fires,
cheeseburgers. They feature the chicken products, soft drinks, breakfast items, desserts, wraps
and the milkshakes. It is serving ore than 400 million customers in more than 100 countries. It
operates with 37,855 restaurants on global level and has employed approximately more than
210000 employees. At the time of its establishment, it rechristened its business as the stand of
hamburger and lately, it turned the organization into franchise with its golden arches logo which
was introduced in the year 1953. It is one of the largest company in terms of revenue in the
restaurant chain by serving 69 millions customers on daily basis. It keeps up with food trends in
the market in order to retain its customers. For instance, by changing trends in food and
preference of customers wherein negative backlash came for unhealthy foods, McDonald
introduced salad, smoothies, fish and fruits (D’Souza and et. al., 2019).
Problem or issue faced by organisation
The main issue which the company McDonald is facing is to maintain the right balance
between the innovation, risk taking and consistent experience. As McDonald 's cannot stay at
the cutting edge of the innovation, food trends and technology so it is difficult for it to maintain
the consist experience for its customers. Especially due to the pandemic of Covid-19, there has
been a learning experience for it as the organisation have been forced to close its restaurant in
UK. The business has been affected badly due to the pandemic and it is not possible for the

company which has more than 4 million customers to stand still and not bring something new in
market. It cannot afford to stand at cutting edge of all of the technology, innovation and food
trends. The main area of concern for the organization is that it is facing difficulty to come up
with the best marketing idea so that it can find out the best balance between offering the new
product or service with maintenance of the consistent experience. It is rightly said that in order to
serve 4 million customers, an organization cannot stand still rather it has to think of something
which can help it to attract and retain the customers. It cannot just afford to cut the edge of
innovation, food trend as well as technology.
Now that the pandemic have affected the business of McDonald's, the company faced
difficulty in communicating the impact to franchisees, agency partners and suppliers. This is
because it has to do something in order to retain its market share as well as the customers. So
marketing is its biggest issue. Next problem which the company is facing is relating to
improving the diversity. The company is facing issues in the leadership of the senior members as
there is no ethic diversity at board level. The aim of company is to reach the same level of
ethnicity as it has achieved in terms of gender (Pegan, Vianelli and Luca, 2020).
Research
The research can be referred to as the method which involves collection of the
information and data about the organisation or the area so that the result or outcome can be
brought after making its analysis. There are mainly two kinds of research methods which
includes firstly the primary that involves collecting the first hand information directly from the
sample population. It is the original collection and gathering of the information. Next is
secondary research which involves collecting the already gathered information which is pre-
existed. It covers mainly all materials which are already published. This type of research
involves every publishing material. Data and reports by which the documents and work is
maintained. For the purpose of this problem, secondary research is being chosen as it will help in
gaining the insight of the information of company which is pre existed in the market (Wafler and
Badir, 2017).
As per the opinion of Caroline Forsey, marketing can be defined as business or action
which involves promoting and selling the product or service to the customer which includes
advertisement and market research. It is a process wherein the company is involved in getting the
customers who are interested in the offering of the organization. The term process here means

that marketing is engaged in researching, selling, promoting and also distributing the product or
service to the target customer. Without marketing, a company cannot move ahead and battle the
competition as marketing is such activity which is engaged in attracting the target market so that
their sales can be enhanced. There are various marketing techniques which can be opted by the
organizations in order to attract and retain the customers such as social media, digital marketing,
email marketing, online PR, advertisements, etc.
Due to the pandemic of Covid-19, there has been heavy losses being faced by the
company so it is important for it to come up with such marketing strategy which can give edge to
it in order to battle the competition. The issues faced by the company at the time of Covid-19
includes the following-
 The company has failed to retain the customers due to pandemic of Covid-19 which has
resulted in shut down of the restaurant in UK.
 The company cannot afford to stay at the cutting edge of the innovation, food trends and
technology due to shutting down of the restaurant in UK.
 It is also facing difficulty in striking right balance between the risk taking and innovation
and keeping the consistent experience is very difficult, especially in middle of pandemic.
 The company has failed to make improvement in the ethnicity just like the gender so it
has to bring improvement in the ethnicity so that there is diversity of workforce at the
workplace (Pitt and Treen, 2017).
Solutions
From the information collected from the secondary research, it is being recommended to
McDonald hat it can make use of the following solution in order to overcome its problems or
issues. These are illustrated below-
 As the company is facing issue to strike the balance between the risk taking and the
innovation and maintaining consistent experience, it can plan such marketing strategy
which can help it to attract more customers, thereby maintaining consistent experience.
The strategy of marketing includes digital marketing such as social media, collaboration
with different personnels, etc. so that the customers are retained and attracted. The social
media can help it to reach large audience in just a click. As the target market of
McDonald's is millennials and they are more on the platforms of social media and stay
active all the time so McDonald can make use of this platform and place its offers and

discounts on it in order to attract them and provide the same consistent experience to
them. Moreover, with the help of marketing, McDonald's can communicate both its
brand value and the important information regarding the opening of new restaurant chains
(Terech, 2018).
 As the company McDonald's is spending huge funds in innovation and taking high risk
from its experiments, so it is important for it to come up with such leadership which can
help the whole team of the organisation to work hard. A good leader can bring innovation
in the company smoothly and motivates the team to bring ideas which can bring balance
between innovation and consistent experience. Th ability of risk taking also enhances
with the good leadership at all levels of the hierarchy of management. Communication is
an important key in this time when the business is badly affected by the pandemic and in
order to overcome this and to maintain the right balance between it, it is essential to have
good communication among all staff from top to bottom so that there is healthy culture
being developed. The impact of pandemic on the business resulted in shutting down of
company can be solved by the right communication channel among all stakeholders such
as suppliers, agency partners, franchisees, etc.
 McDonald's can improve the diversity in its workplace by recruiting and hiring more of
the employees who are from different race and colour so that there is respect for
ethnicity. This can bring diversity in the company as there will be people from different
cultures and backgrounds and diversified range of ideas can be brought in order to take
the organization forward (Jamolovna, 2021).
Thus, by implementing the above mentioned solutions, McDonald's can maintain the
right balance between the risk taking innovation and the providing consistent experience to the
customers. These solutions will bring change in the working of the company so that it cannot
stand still in the market and attract more customers by way of best marketing strategy.
Outcomes
From the above provided solutions, McDonald's is being suggested for opting the digital
marketing, especially the social media wherein it can make use of the Instagram and Twitter in
order to create its brand awareness and communicate important information regarding the
opening of new restaurant. This marketing strategy can help in reaching large audience in short
time period . By making use of right marketing technique which is social media, it can attract the

millennials in order to consume the fast food. Now the restaurant has also introduced the healthy
food items such as salads fish, fruits, etc. so that it can stay updated with the lasted food trends.
From the solution recommended, it can also bring the balance between its innovation and
consistent experience for the customers. Moreover, recruiting the staff from different culture,
background, race, colour, etc. can help in bringing diversity at workplace and enhance the
respect towards ethnicity just like gender.
Hence, McDonald's can make use of the above mentioned solutions such as good
leadership, marketing strategies and recruitment of diversified staff so that there is balance
between offering new products and the consistent experience of the customers.
Handover
From the above recommendations regarding solutions to the problem, McDonald can opt
for the social media marketing and participative leadership style so that it can bring innovation
and new technologies at workplace so that potential customers are attracted. This leadership at
the senior board level can help in implementing the solutions in better way so that a balance is
maintained between innovation and consistent experience for customers. This marketing strategy
and leadership will help in communicating with the potential customers so that the organization
is not required to cut the edge on the innovation and technology (Wu and Lai, 2019).
Moreover, making use of the social media and other channels of digital marketing,
McDonald can attract more of the customers and deliver the information in respect of new
opening of the restaurant. It must make sure that it makes effective use of it so that the company
can get benefit of it in order to attract more customers. Furthermore, hiring the diversified staff
can bring ethnicity at the workplace as there will more diversified range of ideas from the
people.

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from this report that that the marketing strategies plays an important role
in the company as it helps in reaching the customers. In order to prevent the cutting edge of the
innovation , food trends and technology, it can make use of the marketing strategy and good
leadership so that it can maintain the balance between innovation and risk taking and the
consistent experience. Marketing is one of the most important part or activity of the business as it
helps in promoting and communicating about the business and its offerings so that its brand
value is enhanced.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
D’Souza, C., and et. al., 2019. Environmental management systems: an alternative marketing
strategy for sustainability. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 27(5), pp.417-434.
Handoyo, M., Nurdyansyah, N. and Haryanto, B., 2020. Marketing Strategy of New Schools in
the Selection of New Students at AL Zamzam Sukodono Islamic Elementary
School. Proceeding of The ICECRS, 7.
Jamolovna, J.D., 2021. The essence of the organization and management of marketing strategy
in enterprises. ASIAN JOURNAL OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL RESEARCH, 10(5),
pp.150-158.
Pegan, G., Vianelli, D. and Luca, P.D., 2020. International Marketing Strategy. Springer.
Pitt, C.S. and Treen, E., 2017. Understanding communication in disaster response: A marketing
strategy formulation and implementation perspective. Journal of Public Affairs, 17(3),
p.e1639.
Terech, A., 2018. An introduction to marketing and branding. Generations, 42(1), pp.45-49.
Wafler, B.H. and Badir, Y.F., 2017. Global products marketing strategy of two European MNCs
in Vietnam. Journal of Product & Brand Management.
Wu, Y.L. and Lai, S.T., 2019. The Effects of Hunger Marketing Strategy and Customer Emotion
on Purchase Behavior.