Marketing Essentials Report: Marketing Mix for McDonald's, UK

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of McDonald's marketing strategies, focusing on its application of marketing essentials within the UK market. The report begins with an introduction to marketing functions, emphasizing their role in achieving organizational goals. It then delves into a detailed examination of McDonald's marketing activities, including market analysis, product design, packaging, and customer service. The report explores the relationship between the marketing department and other key departments, such as finance, production, procurement, and research and development, highlighting the significance of interdepartmental collaboration. Furthermore, the report examines the benefits of the 7Ps of the marketing mix (Product, Place, Price, Promotion, People, Process, and Physical Evidence) in achieving organizational objectives, particularly in the context of McDonald's. Finally, the report concludes with a discussion of a relevant marketing plan for McDonald's, including strategies for market expansion and customer engagement. The document is contributed by a student to be published on the website Desklib, a platform which provides all the necessary AI based study tools for students.

MARKETING
ESSENTIALS

Table of Contents
MARKETING ESSENTIALS.........................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Analysis of various duties and activities of function of marketing Mc Donald's.............1
1.2 Analysis of duties and roles of marketing as the per the organization.............................3
M 2 Relationship of marketing with other departments and its significance.........................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................5
2.1Benefits of the 7Ps of the market in achieving organization goals...................................5
Task 3 ............................................................................................................................................12
3.1 Marketing plan for McDonald's.....................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is key function of management that helps in achievement appropriate
customers for products developed by organization (The Marketing Concept, 2017). Through, the
approach of effective exchange of information and facts company is able to reach the customers
easily. With the use of marketing firm can efficiently accomplish its objectives. Along with that
it also helps in identifying customer satisfaction and actions can be taken accordingly.
In this context, McDonald's is recognised as prominent company across the countries.
They provide a tremendous range of food items by keeping in mind the taste and preference of
customers (Berkowitz, 2016). Different strategies would be evaluated to increase the market
share. The project laid emphasis on the role of marketing functions to enhance the sale in U.K
and their impact on overall organization. Role and responsibility of marketing in achieving the
market strategies of company will be covered in the report.. The importance of marketing mix
(7Ps) to achieve the agenda of business and relevant marketing plan for the McDonald's will be
studied. Appropriate marketing plans to accomplish target goals will be framed as well.
Task 1
1.1 Analysis of various duties and activities of function of marketing Mc Donald's
Marketing team of McDonald's has developed innovative plan to expand its product.
Assigning the task adequately to marketing member that who will perform which duty, when and
how. Being McDonald's as a large fast food supply chain includes various marketing functions:
 Marketing plays a vital role in the profitability of the business.
 The role and responsibility of marketing function depends on the product offered by the
company.
 Marketing function helps company to analyse potential products of the market and
advertising them by product differentiate.
 Collecting Information and gathering of indispensable information, facts and data is
essential for the marketing department (Harrington and et.al 2017).
 McDonald's required to thoughtfully understand the needs and wants of customer, their
taste and preferences, quality of product at affordable price.
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 Marketing Planning is very imperative to accomplish organization goals and for that
company has to formulate effective plans with the respect of promoting the product.
 Design of product plays vital role in the promotion of product. In this way, McDonald's
has design the product in such a way to enjoy the competitive advantage.
 Company whose product are well designed has major impact on the customers comparing
to those whose design is less attractive. Design should be updated according to relevant
time intervals.
Packaging and Labelling
 Appropriate packaging helps in safeguard of product from being getting ruin.
 It facilitates proper handling of products.
 Whereas, Labelling is the information manifested on product to provide guidelines how
to use it (Wang, Chen and Chen, 2016).
 McDonald's is offering its product with affirmative packaging and labelling.
 Adopting strategies to enhance the product packaging and labelling materiel.
Standardization and Grading
In context of McDonald's, company incurred high cost on standardization and grading to
attract customer its customer through high quality.
 Standardization includes the standard of product on behalf of its material, quality, design,
hue, etc.
 It differentiates product from other products and helps customer to identify it frequently
(Berkowitz, 2016).
 Grading means giving remarks to products that the particular product is of high standard
or low.
 It improves sale and purchase of goods.
Customer support service
McDonald's through its proper services is able to resolve the problems of customers by
offering various customer satisfaction services like credit facility, maintenance services, after
sale services (Pike, 2016). McDonald's consider customer satisfaction as its top priority.
 Customer is the prime element of market without them no market can be regulate.
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 Consumer satisfaction is an advantage to firm in attracting or influencing more
customers, therefore, it is the role and responsibility of marketing function to
provide help to consumers.
 The price of McDonald's products are fixed by keeping in mind all these points
and hence they are available in the market at reasonable price so people can enjoy
vast range of McDonald's products.
 McDonald's being a large supply chain follows the advertising approach to reach
its target customers. Advertising the product on television, internet, radio,
hoardings, etc.
Warehousing
A bulk of material purchased is kept in stores to avoid any breakage (Noel, 2016).
Material of high class and expensive ingredients need to stored properly as ordering new material
again will lead delay in production process.
 Safety of goods at the time procurement and after than is mandatory to protect the rights
of consumers.
 For the McDonald it is important to store goods properly.
 Company ensures that the raw-material used is of high quality and hygienic.
1.2 Analysis of duties and roles of marketing as the per the organization.
Marketing is considered as most significant process making the availability of the product
in the potential market and stimulating people to purchase that particular product. Marketing has
an important role in the organization context as it helps company to identify which market will
be suitable for the product and when it should be launch. It is marketing team task to get
feedback from customers (Maghaireh, 2016). McDonald's through the help of its internal and
external channels analyse the preferences of people. It is the function of marketing to learn from
competitors and their mistake to be prepare for the future which is unpredictable. McDonald's
always track its competitors to have vision about their policies and strategies. Analysing the customer needs:- Being the marketing manager assistance, company
focused on identifying the customer wants and their desire according to that product are
manufactured. Monitor competition:- It is important to have a track of our competitors to formulate
adequate policies and to analyse the position of firm in the industry.
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 Brand Values:- It is the role and responsibility marketing to create messages and notions
for the brand value (Zolkifly and Baharom, 2016). Brand is basically the feeling that
product and services reflects. It is important to ensure that company advertise these
notions in unified and correct way. Innovation:- Novel things are admired by people very much. Consumers need to be
astonished regularly and profound offers which persuade them to purchase that particular
brand product. Innovation is a type of improvement in the product. McDonald's always
tends to modify its product to attract large number of customers. It is thinking of using
advance technology to amend its sales by which customer can have the product as earlier
as possible
 Marketing Budget:- Like other division in the company marketing department also have
to prepare its budget. A budget is something plan in advance by calculating all the
sources that this much amount will be required to perform these activities (Illing and
Anders, 2016). So McDonald's in advanced plan its marketing budget for the next year to
make most of it.
 Return on Investment:- Marketing is a term which required large investment of money,
manpower and time. As the assistant marketing manager investment should be measure
to analyse that they can meet the standard objectives or not. If the investment is desirable
than return on investment will be greater.
 Marketing Plans:- Organization should try to formulate such strategies which can meet
the long term goals of the company. Appropriate policies should be adopted in order to
achieve the objectives efficiently. To do so company has to follow the correct strategies
to meet the market plans (Mintz and et.al 2016). McDonald's in such case has innovative
procedure of comparing the market plans with other unit plans and according to that
modify it.
M 2 Relationship of marketing with other departments and its significance.
For the expansion of marketing, there is an interrelationship among the functional
departments of organization. In this scenario, McDonald marketing department has a significant
relation with other department which is determined below:
Finance department: All the plans, developed for increasing the marketing includes financial
contribution. For the implementation of strategies, it is essential marketing managers of
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McDonald's to determine the evolution of budget required in monetary terms. They have to
coordinate with finance department and clearly define the plan, requirement of cost, products and
percentage of gain on sales. Managers of finance perform a significant task of analysis the
profitability and determine the budget which is appropriate for marketing.
Production unit: Analysis has determined that, Capabilities of production will define the
number as well as quality of products which is to be marketed. It is significant for marketing
manager of McDonald's to coordinate with production unit or managers to analyses the
capabilities and improvement for development of products which are preferred by customers.
Apart from this, Marketing managers will also determine the sales forecast of products which is
significant for appropriate production.
Procurement unit: There is also relationship of marketing department with procurement unit to
determined the situation of shortage of materials which is significant to analyses the requirement
for future. Managers will coordinate with procurement, determine demand of raw materials in
future for products in the future. It will also determine the demand of new materials and
equipment for manufacturing. Unit of procurement will ensure that there will be appropriate
supply of raw material and also identify the new suppliers.
Research and development: For the creation of new products, there is an interrelation of
marketing with research department. They will determine appropriate products and needs of
customers to marketing managers. McDonald marketing managers will coordinate with research
department for analyzing new products and latent needs of customers. Therefore, there is a major
relation ship of the units which is significant for implementation and growth of marketing.
Task 2
2.1Benefits of the 7Ps of the market in achieving organization goals
Marketing-Mix are used as tool of management which are used by marketers. It helps in
achieving the objective of marketing department by considering the imperative elements of
marketing mix. Basically, it is the nature of organization to follow goal oriented process and to
achieve that, it is required to follow or carefully consider factors related to the market. In case of
In this context, the cited organization is considering all elements of marketing while
introducing its product into market according to the planned strategies. The biggest competitor of
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McDonald's is KFC which also deals in wide range of the fast food products. Former, firm was
mainly focused on price differentiation, whereas, latter pays attention on product
differentiation(Soliman, McCarthy and Singh, 2016). Much of the vegan customers prefers
McDonald's and on the other hand non-vegan consumer opt for KFC. As items offered by former
are veg and non-veg products both whereas latter deals more in non-veg products that is fried
chickens. The 7Ps of marketing mix that helps an organization in accomplishing its objectives
effectively and efficiently are listed below:-
 Product:-It is a commodity which satisfy different needs and wants of people. A product
should be reliable and must satisfy its customers. Product facilitating quality and
standards are admired by people in large quantity. McDonald's offer quality products
with huge range to stimulate customers to purchase its products. Adequate and attractive
packaging of goods is the policy adopted by the firm to attract customers especially
children who consume or choose the product on the basis of its packing (Maghaireh,
2016). McDonald's have also focused towards design and value of products to determine
the prices and suitability of products for people. They have also concentrated the
development of products to maintain the brand image and loyalty of customers. Analysis
has determined that there is a continuous rise in responsiveness and creation of new
products by McDonald's to meet demand of people.
 Place:- It is essential to identity the particular locality or market in which a business can
make the availability of its product to the consumer easily. This may include stores at
well known place like in mall, popular streets and online marketing through online shop
and e-commerce. McDonald's as a prominent firm always focus on opening of its stores
at or near public place so that they can render better services to customers. Place has a
major role in defining the growth and profit ratio of the company (Rudden, 2016).
McDonald's marketing strategy is to look for the relevant location so that from their it can
have greater number of audience to consume its services. McDonald's is planning to
increase the number of its outlets and has defeated pizza hut in quick services. For
expansion of marketing McDonald's have also used new methods of promotions like
online marketing, order through mails and multiple channels of communication. For the
increasing the expansion of revenue they have used the method of direct sales through
developments small hubs and stores at rural areas. Managers of McDonald s have also
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their sales promotion through use of methods like peers promotion. They also have
effective channels of distribution which provides benefits to fulfil the adequate demand
of products at specific time.
 Promotion:- There are different ways of promoting a product in the market by changing
the vision of customers persuading them to buy particular brand product. Various tools of
promotion include advertising, personnel selling, sales promotion, etc. These approaches
are used to transfer the information of the organization to the people in correct form.
McDonald's has followed advertising strategies to reach its target audience briskly. It
mainly focuses on promoting the products on television, internet, magazines and
newspaper. Promotion mix has helped the McDonald's very much in expanding it's
supply chain as well as its production chain. They have also used the methods of celebrity
endorsement as it is more effective and helps in attracting more customers. They have
provided information about special offers by direct mailing to customers. McDonald's has
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Illustration 1: Marketing mix model
(Source 1: 4P – 7P Marketing PowerPoint, 2017)

also increased its branding through development of positive relationship with customers
and retain there loyalty towards the brand.
 Price:- Price is the consideration paid by customer in return for any product. So the
customer should get all aspect of the product which are mentioned by the company.
Making products which are affordable for everyone should not be the motive of any
company. It should manufacture fair products and by considering total cost incurred in
production, then price should be decided(Wang, Chen and Chen, 2016.). They have also
used the strategy of providing special discounts on the purchase of specific amount of
products and also provides extra benefits through increasing the quantity of products.
Various methods like discounts on list price, low prices on combo products are used by
them to promote their products. McDonald's for this uses price differentiation to provide
customers different products of various range. As there are many competitors in the
industry who deals in fast food items so the decision taken by McDonald's regarding its
price policy is a complex process to enable quality products at affordable price. For
instance McAloo tikki is the cheapest product provide by McDonald's and along with that
happy meals and other affordable combos are provided at low price.
 People:- Human resource is an essential element in the process of marketing mix. Whole
company and each division is operated by people or the staff of the company. It is the
skill, ability and proficiency of the organization members who put there a hundred
percent in the achieving the company's goals. Therefore, people recruited by McDonald's
are of high credentials (Pappas, 2017). Management provides adequate training to its
existing as well as new employees for fast friendly services. Standard attires for
subordinates to provide equity to all members and ensuring satisfaction services inside
the outlets. Managers of Firm have also focused on development appropriate work
culture between employees within there outlets. Effective work culture is significant for
providing better services to customers.
 Processes:- This element of marketing mix is specially relevant for the companies
prevailing in service industry. Services are intangible assets which can not be seen but
can be felt by the one who is acquiring it. Human being is a bundle of emotions and
instinct, whatever he feels has a major impact on its mind. Good things are admired
whereas bad services are criticised. So it is imperative to render quality services to those
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who are paying you fer the same. Innovative and novel methods of packaging and
distribution has been adopted by McDonald's. It Provides consumer the authority to
check the ingredients used in food material and regular adopts its cooking gazettes for
quality and fast services (Mishra, 2016). McDonald's has used a self service in which
customers are free to select the products and take their products. They have also
developed transparency in manufacturing their products which resolve the issue of
hygiene among the customers. They also controlled over quality in their products by
using appropriate process of services. Introduction of digital payment systems has also
provided benefit to McDonald's in attracting the customers Whereas,
 Physical Evidence:- Though, services are intangible but to prove their existence their
must be some proof. For that people are provided with bill facilities by fast food outlets
to have an evidence that the particular person on that date and on this time had enjoyed
services. Apart from that the stuff used in the interior of outlets like furniture, curtains,
maintenance of floor, etc. falls under physical evidence. McDonald's therefore lay
emphasis on the appearance of the material placed inside the outlet that includes
grooming of staff member as well (Dessain and Zeuch, 2016). Cleanness and hygienic
premise are core functions of McDonald's. For providing comfortable environment to
people, they have focused on providing better facilities like separate tables for families
etc. with the use of Smart. On the other hand,
Analysis of competitors marketing mix.
 Product: KFC policy is to render the products on the basis of scrumptious taste. Products
offered by McDonald's are big mac, hamburger, quarter pounder, big n tasty whereas
items delivered by KFC are chicken snack-er, hot wings, super 6's, 8 pc hot crispy, etc.,
all are chicken based products. So in such a case McDonald's is having an advantage as it
can attract both veg and non-veg customers (Wang, Chen and Chen, 2016)
 Price: KFC product price are much higher as compare to McDonald's as a result people
often visit to KFC. Therefore, here also through the different price policy McDonald's is
having greater advantage compared to its competitors.
 Place: KFC outlets are mainly in shopping complexes enabling customers' facility of
drive in and drive through options. Strategy adopted by McDonald's is much relevant
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because of which it has maximum numbers of stores and the location selected by it is
admired people and therefore they mostly choose McDonald's product (McCarthy and
Singh, 2016).
 Promotion: Product promotion policy of KFC is placing adds through coupons,
vouchers, kids meal, etc. It tends to promote its product in its own outlets by television
and its existing menu (Pike, 2016). So the promotion strategy of KFC is not that much
attractive as McDonald's. Advertisement methods used by former are much effective in
persuading customer's.
 Process: Process followed by KFC is not that much effective as they focus on customer
satisfaction by considering taste of products. Here too the process followed by the
McDonald's is effective as it lay emphasis on each step which needs to be performed for
making the availability of product at faster rate.
 Physical evidence: KFC focus on advanced technology equipments to have a positive
impact on the customers. Interior is decorated or maintain according to planned
standards. McDonald's use captivate human statues outside its stores to attract customers
and mostly children's are persuaded through it.
 People: KFC train their employees how to deal with customers and are supervised by
company itself. McDonald's pay more attention on its human resource as they are the
source of supplying products and rendering services to its customers.
Comparison between the firms and its competitors effectiveness of marketing elements.
Basis McDonald's KFC Burger king
Products Products which are
offered by organization
consist must consist of
both vegetarian and non
vegetarian fast food
products.
The products which are
offered by the organization
are consists of wide variety
of non veg products but it
lacks innovations and not
favorable to the customers
in some countries like India
The products which are
offered by the firm are
similar like mac Donald's
but to its quality is not
considered as much
effective as compared to
the enterprise.
Price The firm has adopted a
penetration pricing policy
KFC has not changed its
pricing policy and products
Pricing policy of
organization is effective
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