Unit 2 Marketing Essentials: McDonald's Marketing Plan Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of McDonald's marketing strategies, focusing on the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function and its interrelation with other organizational units. The report explores McDonald's marketing plan, highlighting how the company utilizes the marketing mix (7Ps) to achieve its business objectives and comparing its approach with that of Burger King. It also examines the organizational context in which marketing operates, discussing the roles of various departments and their contributions to the overall success of the company. The analysis includes a review of McDonald's market research, its approach to branding, and its strategies for engaging different consumer segments. The report also delves into the importance of employee training and the implementation of effective marketing plans. The report concludes by evaluating a basic marketing plan for McDonald's and its essentiality for the organization.

UNIT 2. MARKETING ESSENTIALS

Table of contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Task 1.........................................................................................................................................4
LO 1: Explaining the role of marketing and how it interrelates with other function units of an
organisation................................................................................................................................4
P1: Explaining the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function for McDonald’s. .4
P2 Explaining how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organisational
context for McDonald’s.............................................................................................................5
Task 2.........................................................................................................................................7
LO2 Comparing ways in which organisation use elements of the marketing mix (7Ps) to
achieve overall business objectives............................................................................................7
P3 Comparing the ways in which McDonald’s applies the marketing mix to the marketing
planning process to achieve business objectives........................................................................7
Task 3:......................................................................................................................................11
LO3 Developing and evaluating the basic marketing plan......................................................11
P4 Producing and evaluating a basic marketing plan for McDonald’s....................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................14
Reference list............................................................................................................................15

Introduction
Marketing essentials is an effective driver which helps the organisation to achieve the
goals of success. Marketing essentials become an effective and efficient factor to the
organisation to enhance itself in the perspective of product and profit development.
Marketing essentials help the organisation to develop the quality of its providing services.
Marketing essentials encourage the organisation to satisfy all the needs of its consumers and
also attract to select their services. On the other hand, marketing essentials help to gather
actual knowledge regarding the needs and demands of various types of service-users.
Marketing essential becomes an efficient key factor to a new marketing manager to highlight
consumers focus. To understand the importance of marketing research and marketing mix the
organisation utilise the concept of marketing essentials.
As a newly appointed marketing manager of McDonald’s, the learner will explain the
efficient roles and responsibilities of the marketing function in the organisation. Then the
learner will compare the importance of marketing mix of McDonald’s with another renowned
contemporary organisation like Burger King. Then the learner will discuss the basic
marketing plan of McDonald’s and its essentiality for the organisation also. The learner will
elaborate briefly how an effective marketing plan and all the factors of marketing essentials
encourage the organisation to develop and maintain its standard.
Figure 1: Logo of McDonald’s

(Source: Mcdonalds.com, 2016)
Task 1
LO 1: Explaining the role of marketing and how it interrelates with other function units
of an organisation
P1: Explaining the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function for
McDonald’s
McDonalds’s becomes one of the best brands all over the world which builds the
strong relationship with its consumers by listening all its needs. In the opinion of Menz
(2012, p.41), through an effective marketing plan, McDonald’s identifies various stages of
succession and then appropriately follows it. In the opinion of Verhoef et al. (2013, p.01), the
organisation follows some efficient communication process of marketing like, attractive
advertisement and catchy promotions. The familiar logo named Golden Arches is used by
McDonald’s to attract huge numbers of viewers. By executing an effective marketing plan,
McDonald’s able to identify the entire social, legal and technical changes of business which
is very important to stay ahead in the competition market. Per the Goetsch et al. (2014,
p.410), the main principles of the success of the organisation is to know the actual demands
of its consumers which help them to meet entire demands of them. In this way, McDonald’s
gains groups of loyal and efficient consumers
The organisation can know the actual demands by arranging an effective market
research which determines the essentiality of the marketing mix. Through the marketing
research McDonald’s highlights which food items become most demanding products among
the service users and how much amount they will be able to pay for this specific item. By
gathering knowledge about choices of the entire service-users, the organisation provides
advertisement through popular newspapers and commercial television programme regarding
its new products. McDonald’s believes that an effect marketing research helps the
organisation to maximise its profits and win the trust of its consumers. The succession of the
organisation depends on the psychological effects of its consumers which ensure by
providing an attractive advertisement or logo. The organisation establishes a prominent
position regarding the quality of the providing services in the mind of its consumers which
becomes an effective step of the marketing plan, named branding. McDonald’s gains huge

knowledge about the choices of the various ages of consumers in the perspective of their
capabilities, the standard of living and work schedule. After this effective marketing research,
the organisation fixes an efficient goal and executes an efficient plan which helps them to
achieve its betterment. McDonald’s gains knowledge regarding the market sales and share
and converts long-term planning events into short-term objectives. The main principle of
McDonald’s is to convert the entire society into their regular consumers. The organisation
identifies actual strength and weak points also to fill those gaps and enhance itself in the
competition market.
In order to perform various activities and goals, it is important to make effective
results and performances. It can be done through assign different roles such as training to
employee,, product development plan and many more aspects which create positive impact
on the customers of the chosen business.
various types of
service-users
Difference choices visiting time to
McDonald’s
McDonald’s
offering dishes
1. Groups of college
students
They visit
McDonald's to
provide the treat to
its friends and enjoy
a great fun.
Visit this food sector
to have their dinner.
The organisation
offers delicious and
classic food item.
2. A parent with two
children
A health-conscious
parent comes to the
organisation to enjoy
to provide healthy
meals which will be
equivalent to an
apple
Visit McDonald's to
provide their children
a healthy meal in the
evening.
The organisation
offers truly a
hygienic and healthy
preparation to these
service-users.
3. A business man An executive person
visits McDonald’s to
hold its importance
meetings with its
staffs and have a
Visit to McDonald’s
to have its lunch and
become a regular
customer of the
organisation.
The organisation
offers a combo pack
on an individual day
in a week for these
service-users.

special menu.
4.A senior
respectable couple
A senior couple visits
to the organisation to
enjoy some separate
dishes without
sacrificing their
health issues.
Come to the
organisation very
often in the evening.
The organisation
offers a light dish to
this consumer which
become beneficial for
their health.
Table 1: Marketing research of McDonald’s
(Source: Verhoef et al., 2013, p.01)
P2 Explaining how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider
organisational context for McDonald’s
The key contribution of marketing function is, serving as a connection between the
various processes in MacDonald's and the customer. The marketing function must be
developed after specifying the nature skills, knowledge and the customer connection that
increases the value within MacDonald's. To achieve the long-term objectives of MacDonald's
the strategic plan of this company should be formulated. The roles and the responsibilities of
marketing are interrelated to the other departments of the company. The board is the ultimate
decision maker in McDonald's. The board is like an advisor who counsels the senior
management and enforces the accountability standards which enables the senior marketing
management in carrying out their responsibilities.
Per Goffee and Scase (2015, p.331), the manager plans and organises the various
departments to enlarge the customer expectations. The manager of McDonald's also works
with the other managers of the company while promoting an ambit of benefits such as
improving accuracy, continuous improvement and reducing the needs of repeating works.
Cameron and Green (2015, p.224) noticed that the supervisor ties up with the manager to
ensure the procedures and the practices are applied by the operators. The operators take care
of the daily operations of the company's business. The operations function, however, require
the support of some services like- Human Resource support and finance support.
The finance managers of McDonald's are responsible for producing the management
and the financial accounts when contributing to the process of strategic decisions and
ensuring the legal compliances. The resources like people, raw materials and equipment are

there to execute the processes. In the words of Hatch and Cunliffe (2013, p.24), the human
resource or the HR department includes- estimating the staff requirements, planning and
managing the selection and the recruitment process. The HR ensures whether the HR policies
are applied by the managers across the business. The staffs play an important role in
achieving the business goal. In the restaurants of McDonald’s, the crew members are the
most numerous. Approximately 12% of the teenagers are employed in the various stores in
different countries. Employee training is very important in marketing and in McDonald’s it is
highly structured.

Task 2
LO2 Comparing ways in which organisation use elements of the marketing mix (7Ps) to
achieve overall business objectives
P3 Comparing the ways in which McDonald’s applies the marketing mix to the
marketing planning process to achieve business objectives
Figure 2: The “7ps” Of Marketing Mix
(Source: Hampton, 2015, p.147)
Any organisation, as well as McDonald's, utilises the concept of the marketing mix as
an efficient business strategy. In the opinion of Schindehutte et al. (2015, p.491), the
organisation will be able to meet all needs of its consumers without increasing the costs of the

providing services through marketing mix. McDonald’s utilise the marketing mix as a
wonderful picture of the palette of an artist. In the opinion of Hampton (2015, p.147), the
management of the organisation mixes all the factors of the providing services as prime
colours in various quantities to deliver a specific final colour which is equivalent to the
providing services. The organisation deals the idea of marketing mixes through some
efficient progressive process like Price, place, product, promotion, physical evidence, process
and people. Price is an essential factor of marketing mix which must be paid by the service-
users to receive the providing services.
The place is an element of marketing mix which includes the effective activities of the
management to ensure the availability of the services. Product means the foods as well as
services which the organisation offers to its target consumers. The concept of promotion
denotes the efficient activities which are undertaken by of the management of the
organisation to inform its regular consumers regarding its new and already existing services
and encourage them to enjoy the services. In the words of Łobiński et al. (2014, p.60), the
concept of physical evidence is a direct involvement of the organisation to promote its
products or services. In the delivery process, various types of human actor play essential role
which is referred to the concept of people. Last, of all, process denotes the entire delivery
procedure and operational methods which are used to deliver the services of the organisation.
As a newly appointed marketing manager of McDonald’s, the learner will compare the
utilisation of marketing mix of this organisation with Burger King in the perspective of
“7ps”. In order to looks after the succession of the previous day both of the companies
execute its marketing plan through the concept of the marketing mix, but in different ways.
“7PS” of marketing mix McDonald’s Burger King
Place McDonald’s are very aware
of the location of its outlets
which encourages the
organisation to capture huge
numbers of service-users.
Besides offering the service
for a short duration,
McDonald’s also spread its
outlets in various types of
educational institutes like
Besides the outlets, all types
of food items of the
organisation are also
available on the internet, so
the organisation establish all
its outlets around the main
company. On the other hand,
it is also true that the
organisation spreads some of
its outlets in the different

schools, colleges and market
area also which helps them to
localise the communication
process of marketing.
regions to meet all needs of
its service-users.
Price The main aim of the
organisation is to serve
excellence quality of foods
very quickly in standard
prices because the price
provides the determination to
the service-users regarding
the services. According to the
organisation the price of the
providing services specially
food items involves the
psychological factors of the
consumers so the
organisation maintains
standard prices to reduce the
confusions of its consumers
regarding the quality of
providing foods.
By following the effective
pricing policy, the
organisation provides its all
food items at affordable
prices to stay ahead in the
competition market which
does not become the burden
to its service-users. so,
Burger king provides its all
kinds of food items at
affordable prices which is
mostly acceptable to its
consumers.
Product The organisation does not
compromise with the
providing services in the
perspective of quality,
variety and availability also.
The management of the
organisation always wants to
find various types of
ingredients to prepare
difference promising food
items like French fries and
Besides normal burger, the
organisation also provides its
consumers chicken tenders
bacon cheeseburger, cookies,
coffee, juice any other types
of various dishes. The
management wishes to fulfil
all demands of its consumers
by providing dishes and to
retain in the competition
market.

various types of burger.
Promotion The organisation invests
huge amounts of money to
promote its new food items
through social media, the
internet and by providing
some eye-catching posters in
the central area of the entire
locality. The organisation
also uses some celebrities in
different sectors to promote
its brands and services also.
The organisation provides
advertisement regarding its
services through roadside
ads, hoarding and lollipops.
Through these effective ads,
the organisation informs its
consumers that the
organisation provides them
the better quality of foods but
in lowest prices than its
active competitors.
Physical evidence The positive outlook of the
entire staffs through the
duration of providing
services becomes the key
factors of the organisation.
The entire employees of all
its various outlets behave
with its service-users very
thus the consumers love to
spend its leisure in this
organisation.
Besides offering special and
delicious dishes, the
organisation also offers to its
service-users a wonderful
and decorated food area
which becomes the practical
issues of succession as well
as physical evidence of
marketing mix. On the other
hand, the management plays
effective roles to continue its
promotion through the
internet indirectly.
People The secret of the succession
of the organisation is
providing sufficient
importance to both
employees and its service-
users. The management
believes that only an
individual happy and
Through innovative
marketing process, the
organisation continues its
future growth by organising
popular television
commercial programmes.
The main principles of the
organisation is to encourage

satisfied employee will be
able to provide great services
to its consumers. For this
effective reason, the
authority very looks after to
the benefits of its employees.
individual service-users to
visit thrice a week.
Process The organisation maintains a
hygienic process to prepare
all types of foods items by
involving a group of efficient
cooks as well as staffs.
Burger King uses unique but
classic ingredients to prepare
its dishes. On the other hand,
technically the promotion
process also held by the food
sector very consciously to
inform the entire internet
users regarding their new
products.
Table 2: Comparing the marketing mixes of McDonald’s and Burger King
(Source: Łobiński et al., 2014, p.60)