Unit 2 Marketing Essentials: A Comprehensive Case Study on McDonald's

This report provides a comprehensive case study analysis of McDonald's marketing strategies, focusing on the core marketing essentials. The report delves into the roles and responsibilities of the marketing function within McDonald's, highlighting its interrelation with other organizational units and its impact on achieving business objectives. It examines the application of the marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence) by McDonald's, comparing its approach to that of other businesses. Furthermore, the report establishes and evaluates a marketing plan for McDonald's based on the marketing mix elements, offering insights into its effectiveness. The report covers marketing campaigns, plans, and outcomes, providing a detailed overview of McDonald's marketing activities and their impact on the company's success in the fast-food industry. This document is a valuable resource for students studying marketing, offering practical examples and in-depth analysis of real-world marketing strategies.

UNIT 2
Marketing essentials
A case study on McDonald’s
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Table of Contents
Introduction: ...................................................................................................................................3
Task 1..............................................................................................................................................3
LO1: Understand the roles of marketing and its interrelation with other functional units of an
organisation ................................................................................................................................3
P1: Explain the major roles and responsibilities of marketing function for the McDonalds. .3
P2: Discuss how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organisational
context for the McDonalds......................................................................................................5
Task 2 .............................................................................................................................................6
LO2: In which way organisations use aspects of marketing mix to accomplish the business
objectives.....................................................................................................................................6
P3: Compare the approaches in which McDonalds applies the marketing mix to the make
marketing planning to attain objectives of the business and its differences with respect to
other business..........................................................................................................................6
Task 3 ...........................................................................................................................................11
LO3: Establish and evaluate a marketing plan..........................................................................11
P4: Marketing Plan of McDonald’s on the basis of marketing mix .....................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References.....................................................................................................................................15
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Introduction:
Marketing is the most important process of business operation as marketing can increase the
customer attraction towards the product or service. Most of the organisations invest huge money
on marketing to fulfil the customer need of information about product. Managers of different
business entity know that customers depend on available information to take decision about
purchase. In order to discuss marketing essentials this particular report will discuss about
marketing process of McDonald’s. This report also will help to understand the role and
responsibilities of marketing activity on overall organisational process. Importance of marketing
mix to achieve business objectives and the marketing plan of the organisation also will be
presented in this report.
Task 1
LO1: Understand the roles of marketing and its interrelation with other functional units
of an organisation
P1: Explain the major roles and responsibilities of marketing function for the McDonalds
The different aspects of marketing or marketing mix have the positive impact on the
profitability of the business and marketing elements are essential for each and every organisation
in the present trends. The elements of marketing have also become an important platform to
attract lot of customers and increase the awareness of customers towards the brand name. In the
case of business McDonalds, the marketing functions have ample number of roles and
responsibilities that are discussed in this particular section. As the part of international business
one of the major marketing responsibilities of McDonald is to deliver the quality service and
fulfil the sales target. In order to achieve the target marketing team of this organisation has to
develop effective plan based on the target (McDonald's UK, 2016). The main intention of
marketing function of McDonald is to develop the good collaboration with the customers
because establishing good relation with customers to understand the needs of customers and
provide the service as per their expectation. The organisation operates it business across the
worldwide under a competitive circumstances because lots of domestic as well as international
competitors are available in the market. The major competitor of McDonalds is KFC therefore,
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to compete with the competitor the corporation always try to develop the different marketing
function role. The major marketing function responsibility of McDonalds is to improve the brand
image and brand recognition by taking the customer feedback into consideration and developing
the communication with them.
Marketing plays a significant role for McDonald's in order to create awareness among all
the customers about its products or services offered by an entity in satisfying all their needs and
expectations. Essential role of marketing in the business of McDonald's in creating brand name
of the firm to be recognised in the eyes of all the external market users. It is direct weapon used
by an entity to build up its brand name which is important for the business in order to generate
higher amount of returns in a particular period.
Internal communications- Marketing is essential in order to convey all important information
within the business. Several ideas and visions of an employer will be shared with all the
employees in order to inspire towards the existing firm in generating higher output in return. The
company used different types of communication channels such as advertising, event
management program and publicity to communicate with customers directly and easily. Another
role of marketing function of McDonalds is to make the loyal customers and create the customer
value (Boone & Kurtz, 2014).
In order to get the clear idea about the roles and responsibilities of marketing function of
McDonalds, the marketing strategies, marketing plan and outcomes are discussed below:
Marketing Campaign- Focus of McDonald's lies on improving existing elements of marketing
mix strategy in order to extend its existing market share by launching new products in the
market. Aim of the business concern is to satisfy the needs of current market users by identifying
the proper place for selling the products. Another marketing strategy is to come with the veg and
non-veg food item because the choice and preferences of customers are different from reach
others. With the help of this idea, attention of ample number of customers can be drawn and
sales of food products can be increased.
Marketing plan:
In order to implement the marketing strategy, the marketing plan has developed an efficient
marketing plan. Along with marketing team, the marketing manager is also responsible
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establishing the marketing plan with respect to the attracting more customers. The company
provides fast food and beverages products and the demand of such products is high in the current
trends. Due to increase the demand of beverage products and fast food products, the number of
competitors has also raised in the market (McDONALD, 2016). Therefore, to draw the attention
customers, the company provides the special offer scheme or coupons. There are also facility of
combo meal, which is reasonable. In this context, by implementing such marketing plan, the
corporation is able to attract the customers and enhances the sales.
Outcomes:
The marketing manager is responsible to maintain the balance between the demand of
sales and marketing sales. Therefore, the manager consider the interest of each and every
marketing team in the work. In this context, the marketing manager takes the initiatives to
specify the job roles and responsibility to the project team and segregate the job responsibility
based on the experience and interest of team members. The marketing is also accountable for
ensuring the effort of marketing team in case of achieving the target of sales and marketing
objectives.
P2: Discuss how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organisational context
for the McDonalds
The elements of marketing are essential for increasing the brand awareness and
increasing the sales of products, which implies the success of business. With the implementation
of marketing strategy in a proper way, the product value can be increased in the market. In this
case, the marketing team including marketing manager of McDonalds needs to focus on the
execution of the plan or action (Dibb, et al., 2014). Therefore, the marketing department of this
organisation would coordinate different promotional activities and sales activities to make sure
the effective marketing strategy or marketing plan for drawing the attention of potential
customers and retaining the current customers.
Role and responsibilities of a marketing get increase with the overall extension of its
desired scope of market. Business activity's efficiency will be enhances with the passage of time
when an entity owner applies specific tools of marketing in order to grab higher advantage over
its existing market rivals. Market segmentation is that approach covers n the marketing as in this
particular case an entity owner will analyse its existing business conditions in order to target
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more number of customers wit in the business for long time period. Desired role of this
particular technique is to capture large market share by extending its existing business by
catering al the needs and expectations of the external market users.
The marketing function of McDonalds is to communicate regarding the product or
service to a wider consumers. The marketing function of the organisation also involves in the
assessment of the local culture related to the host country along with identifying the marketing
objectives including the business objectives (Khan & Khan, 2011). By doing this, the
corporation is able to identify the taste of people of local place and deliver the information about
the brand in the local environment. The organisation has its operations in various countries
around the globe. The taste and preferences of consumers is varies from place to place or country
to country. Therefore, the concern, find out the appropriate target market in diverse countries to
analyse the expectations of customers and deliver the same as per their taste.
The marketing function of McDonalds is accountable for finding the taste and social
customers of diverse locations. For example, the marketing function of the establishment India
assesses that there is banned in relation to consume beef. Therefore, the marketing
communication has been done with the help of introducing chicken and mutton food along with
excluding the beef product from the outlet menu. The production department of the organisation
also followed the way of marketing department and produce the food products based on the taste
of local people (Rohn, et al., 2014).
With the assistance of marketing research and developing the good interaction with
customers or local people, the corporation is also able to find out the efficient technological
factors with respect to the company like McDonalds. By doing the marketing research, the
establishment can get the information that whether customers are more capable to make the
order of food from the nearest outlet through internet. This particular information would helpful
for the organisation to create the attractive websites with SEO activities so that customers can
access the websites and order the food as per their requirement from the nearby outlets.
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Task 2
LO2: In which way organisations use aspects of marketing mix to accomplish the
business objectives
P3: Compare the approaches in which McDonalds applies the marketing mix to the make
marketing planning to attain objectives of the business and its differences with respect to
other business
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Figure 1: 7 P's of Marketing Mix
Source: (Akturan & Tezcan, 2012)
In this section, the discussion is regarding the seven elements of marketing mix of McDonalds
along with the approaches, which is used by McDonalds to implement the marketing mix in the
process of marketing planning. The various elements of marketing mix are given below:
Product:
Product is regarded as the any object or item that fulfil the demands of customers. Product can
be good or service or tangible and intangible. As a part of food chain sector, the major products
manufactures by McDonalds is different types of food items. The organisation has variety of
products through to draw the attention of all ages of customers. The variety of products provided
by this organisation are hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, French fries, cheeseburgers and wraps.
The establishment also offers different types of desserts, shakes, salads and soft drinks to the
potential and existing customers (Hashim & Hamzah, 2014). The facility of coffee item is also
available in McDonalds because there are some customers, who like to have coffee with food
items. By increasing the availability of products based on taste and preferences of customers,
McDonalds is able to gain the customer faith and create the customer value. In this context,
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McDonald has the greater number of customers because before producing new products give the
preferences to the needs of customers and market first. But the establishment need to focus on
the nutrition and healthy food products to make the positive influence of customers towards the
brand of McDonalds.
Price:
Price is one of the element of marketing, which helps in selecting the appropriate price of
products based on its quality and determining the profit of the company. Price has the effect on
the sales of products and the demand of products in the market. Therefore, the establishment
should implement the appropriate pricing strategy to fix the correct price of products.
McDonalds adopted the cost-leadership pricing strategy, to set the price and sale the popular
products as this particular strategy is beneficial to make profit along with accomplishing
competitive advantage. The corporation also focused on competitive pricing strategy to fix the
price of coffee, soft drinks and French fries and compete with competitors. The organisation also
offers combo meal with reasonable price, which is a new concept of McDonalds (Akturan &
Tezcan, 2012). The management of McDonalds believes that there is psychological connection
between product and customers. Therefore, the organisation never attention on lower pricing
strategy to sale the products at lower price than other concerns in order to retain the trust of
customers towards the quality of products because low priced products compromise its quality.
The corporation has introduced the combo meal with reasonable price to attract lots of customers
and increase the sale of products.
Place:
Place is considered as the third element of marketing mix through which proper place and target
market can be identified for marketing and selling of products. McDonalds has implemented
aggressive expansion strategy or plan to reach the target market around the world. With the help
of this expansion strategy, the company is able to opened 36,000 stores in near about 110
countries across the globe. One of the major aims of business of McDonalds is to expand the
business into the rural area including the urban areas (Anitsal, et al., 2012). The organisation
used franchise process to expand the business operation and reach to the ample number of
customers. McDonalds placed its franchise in various shopping mall as well as airports to attract
the customer from diverse market segments. The organisation has strong distribution strategy
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through which McDonalds is able to distribute the finished products to the customers on time
and satisfy their increasing needs along with raising the customer base.
Promotion:
Promotion is one of the strong marketing elements which assists in increasing the brand
awareness along with selling of products. There are different types of promotional activities
available in the market for example advertisement, social media, online media and public
relation. McDonalds used both traditional as well as contemporary promotional strategies for the
promotion of products or service and increase the customer attention towards the brand (Kotler,
2012). The company maintained public relation with the assistance of commercial process. The
establishment also sponsors various event programs in its business location to raise the customer
awareness regarding the presence of brand.
McDonalds also used social media for the promotion of their products because in the current
most of consumer like to make the order through online media and share their experiences about
the products through social media sites. This increases the public relation and helps the company
to reach more customers. Direct mail is also a useful promotional activities, which is used by
McDonalds for promoting the new products. By doing this, McDonalds is able to raise the
product as well as customers vale.
People: There are extended marketing mix and it comprise three another Ps along with 4ps and
they are people, process, and physical evidence. Most of the organisation have realised that,
customers need some extra benefits with the actual product or service of a business (Gujral, et
al., 2016). Better customer service is the most desire aspect of customer from their favourite
brands. In this present era of e-business customers has low interest about physical purchase, but
the food chain business like McDonald’s mostly like physical purchase to provide the freshness
of their store ambience. McDonald’s believes that face to face interaction with customer is
important to increase the relationship between market and business so that they give importance
on providing quality customer service through their trained people (McDonald's UK. , 2026).
Customers are very conscious about hygiene of food products and McDonald’s also take care of
this aspect to make the reputation as most reliable food chain business in terms of health and
hygiene. Senior management team of the firm also monitor the performance of their people by
continuous review process. The middle line managers provide training to employees about the
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importance of hygiene into the business to increase customer trust. In this way, they maintain
people and their performance to make the business successful.
Process: process of marketing mix is concerned about the business process and how the business
process effects on customers mind about the brand. McDonald’s uses the strategy of franchise to
expand their business across the world (Balmer, 2013). They also prefer to establish same
business process in all the stores across the world to make the same experience in McDonald’s.
Fast come fast serve is the process on which customer rely to save their time from queue.
Customer knows that every store of McDonald’s will provide same facility so that they can buy
from any store. It increases the trust level of customer towards the brand (McDonald's UK. ,
2026). They also establish individual kitchen in every stores to provide fresh food to the
customer. This process also will help to create customers trust and customer satisfaction in terms
of quality of the product. Therefore, process has significant effect on customers mind and it
generates more sale in every potential market.
Physical evidence: This particular P of marketing mix also attracts customers towards the brand.
McDonald’s has physical evidence like Ronald McDonald’s, it is a clown character that used as
mascot of this renowned food chain brand (Ritter, 2013). In this recent time many people making
appearances in the costume of Ronald McDonald to spread happiness among sick children. All
the children like to visit and interact with this character. This is the most significant physical
evidence of this brand. As per the survey result more than 95 percent schoolchildren of UK
know the smile of this mascot (McDonald's UK. , 2026). By seeing statue of Ronald McDonald
customers can recognise the presence of the brand in nearby location. This is the most useful
side of this physical evidence of the brand.
In order to understand the diverse strategies or ways used by different companies to apply the
aspects of marketing mix, the example of Cadbury has been given in this study. McDonalds has
adopted cost leadership pricing strategy and competitive pricing strategy to set the appropriate
price of products wherein, Cadbury majorly pay attention on competitive pricing strategy to fix
the price and compete with competitors (com, 2016). McDonalds focused on airports and
shopping mall to attract customers and enhances the sale of products, whereas Cadbury
concentrated on super market stores and area nearest to the kindergarten school to attract
children as children like to eat chocolate mostly (McDonald's UK. , 2026).
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Task 3
LO3: Establish and evaluate a marketing plan
P4: Marketing Plan of McDonald’s on the basis of marketing mix
Evaluation of market situation and market position is beneficial for a business to set future
strategies (Leonidou, et al., 2013). The tool of marketing mix also helps a brand to make
marketing plan. There are 7Ps to evaluate all the aspects of market that related with customers.
The marketing mix will provide the effective marketing plans according to the policies of
product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. The effective
marketing plan according to marketing mix process will benefit the firm to expand the business
across the world accordingly.
Marketing Objectives:
The objective of marketing activity of McDonald’s is to increase the customer attraction towards
the brand. The following marketing plan will discuss about some marketing essentials to meet
the marketing goal effectively.
STP:
Segmentation, targeting and positioning is the next step of this marketing plan. McDonald’s
wants to increase customer attractions and the market segment of this brand is both the middle
market and mass market (Assiouras, et al., 2013). Target market of McDonalds is kids and
young age population of the county who love to have good food with better enjoyment. For
positioning the brand into the market they have used impactful taglines in their promotional, the
most popular tagline of the brand is “I’m loving it”.
Marketing Plan as per 7ps
Product: the marketing management team of McDonald’s have suggested that the brand has to
innovate new products as per the market demand. Customers of present world like to change the
taste with different food products. The same taste of the product cannot be useful to satisfy the
need of existing customer (Yeung & Yee, 2012). They may switch from the present brand to
another for new flavour, so that the firm has to innovate new products. To expand the business in
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