Analysis of McDonald's Marketing Essentials: Strategies and Planning

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of McDonald's marketing essentials. It begins with an introduction to marketing, discussing current and future trends, and then overviews various marketing processes. The roles and responsibilities of a marketing manager are detailed, along with the interrelationship of the marketing department with other functional departments within McDonald's. The importance of marketing and the significance of effective interrelationships between departments are highlighted. Furthermore, the report examines how McDonald's uses elements of the marketing mix to achieve overall business objectives, including a comparison with Burger King's marketing mix. The report concludes with a basic marketing plan for McDonald's, evaluating its potential effectiveness. Desklib provides access to this document along with a wealth of study tools and resources for students.

MARKETING
ESSENTIALS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1. Introduction to marketing along with current and future trends..........................................1
1.2. An overview of different marketing processes....................................................................2
1.3.Roles and responsibilities of a marketing manager...............................................................2
1.4 Interrelationship of marketing department with other functional departments of
McDonald’s.................................................................................................................................3
1.5 Importance of marketing role................................................................................................4
1.6 Significance of having effective interrelationships between different functional
departments.................................................................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
2.1. Use of elements of marketing mix by organizations to achieve overall business
objectives:...................................................................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
3.1. Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for the organisation......................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12
.......................................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
It is crucial for businesses to effectively manage all their functions for smooth running of
the business. Managers in the organisations must have a strong grip on essentials of business
functions to create strong customer focus towards themselves (Dibb and Simkin, 2013). The
dynamic nature of business environment and its activities have made it even more important for
organisations to adapt and formulate flexible marketing strategies to achieve all their business
goals. The assignment below is based on McDonald's, a global leader in food and beverage
sector. The assignment is inclusive of a detailed analysis of the role of marketing in the
organisation and how it interrelates with the other functional departments of the company. It also
includes analysis of how overall business objectives are achieved by organisations using
elements of marketing mix.
TASK 1
1.1. Introduction to marketing along with current and future trends
Nowadays marketing trends are changing very fast. McDonald's earlier use do
advertisement through television but now they are using social media for their product
promotions. Moreover, they prefer to do distribution through online stores. Marketing is process
of converting consumer needs intro revenue. Marketing helps companies in building their brand
and influencing consumers to choose their brand over others (Jobber and Ellis-Chadwick, 2012).
It is an ongoing management process that focuses on development of the products for the
company, along with determining its price, promotional and distribution strategies.
The current trends of marketing of McDonald's include:
Social Media: The firm has adopted the concept of customer-based marketing. It is
establishing a communication with customers through social media. Such trends helps to
establish long term relations with the buyers and help the firm rectify its errors through instant
feedbacks (Malhotra, Birks and Wills, 2013).
Faster Payment: McDonald's is currently focusing on convenience of the customers. To
establish this, it provides facilities like payments through smartphones and various other NFC
technologies which ease the customer's process of paying for their food. Through effective
marketing campaigns, McDonald's provide such information to its customers.
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However, marketing trends of the future are focusing more upon technological
advancements and precision. These trends include:
Authentic storytelling: Modern day customers are self-directed. These consumers are
seeking more personalized experiences with organisations as big as McDonald's. The future
marketing strategies of the firm should provide the customers with something other than simple
promotion of their product. Cohesive marketing campaigns should be scaled out and the focus
should be telling a story that is authentic, connecting the customers with the company in real-
time.
AI Integration: Artificial Intelligence is the future. It has already created a strong impact
on the world. More organisations are inclining towards AI for their marketing campaigns.
McDonald's should also adopt this trend as it would give the firm more competitive advantage
over other organisations.
1.2. An overview of different marketing processes
There is a specific process of marketing used by McDonald's to create a strong customer
base, which is:
 Detailed and thorough market research identifying opportunities and threats.
 Study of the strategies used by its competitors.
 Setting up of new policies that are customer oriented.
 Critical evaluation of these formulated strategies and policies (McDonald and Wilson,
2016).
1.3.Roles and responsibilities of a marketing manager
Marketing manager is responsible to manage the marketing resources of a business
organisation. The success of a new product and increasing sales figure of the existing ones
heavily depend on this entity (Nagle and Müller, 2017). Marketing manager of McDonald's is
responsible for developing a unique and long lasting brand image in front of its customers. The
roles and responsibilities of marketing manager of McDonald's are as follows:
Customer Relationship: The marketing manager is responsible for establishing a strong
customer relationship. This is achieved through conveying the customers' preferences to the
company which is gathered through detailed surveys and online questionnaires.
Employee Management: The responsibilities of all the employees of marketing
department lies with the marketing manager. He provides them with efficient marketing
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resources and monitors their work performance. He is also responsible for deciding their
incentives and increments.
Marketing Strategies: The competitiveness of a company depends upon their effective
marketing strategies. Marketing manager is responsible towards developing these strategies
which helps to create a stronger brand image and increase in profits.
Marketing Opportunities: The trends of the market are thoroughly analysed by the
marketing managers of McDonald's. Along with this, they identify new markets in which the
company could sell their food items. They also strictly monitor consumer patterns which helps
the company to keep a consistent sales figure even in off-peak intervals of their products.
1.4 Interrelationship of marketing department with other functional departments of McDonald’s
It is very essentials for any organisation to organize and coordinate plans of different
functional departments in order to attain desired goals and objectives. In McDonald's most of the
assimilation takes place after the development and implementation of business plan. It is
important to evaluate and coordinate business plans as all the departments are interlinked with
each other and effect each other. The impact of business development plan on customers is
evaluated by each department of the organisation. The interrelation of marketing department
with other functional department of McDonald's are discussed below:
Marketing and Research & Development: Research and surveys conducted by the
research and development department of a company helps marketing in many ways. R&D
department of an organisation plays crucial role in generating new creative and innovative ideas
for future product developments. In context with McDonald's, research and development
department conducted a survey and identified that most of India's population is vegetarian. This
survey via R&D department of McDonald's helps the organisation to develop and incorporate
some changes in vegetarian hamburgers. Now this new developed vegetarian hamburgers by
McDonald's has high market share in the Indian market since many years.
Marketing and Human resources: Human resources departments deals with
recruitments, selection and training process. They are responsible for identifying and giving best
possible employees and workers to their organisation (Aswathappa, 2013). Moreover, HR
departments also undertakes enhancement and appraisal of every employee’s performance. In
context to McDonald's, if marketing managers of McDonald's wants to hire some employees
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who can work in fields, the HR department plays important role in this situation they would help
them in finding out candidate profile, advertising required for the job and job descriptions.
Moreover, human resource department will provide effective training after hiring so that they
gain some effective knowledge to work and perform well in market.
Marketing and Production: Production department identifies the type and number of
products that is to be marketed, marketing department evaluates sales forecast for every product
line. The interrelation between production and marketing evident when new products are
developed. For instance, if McDonald’s wants to develop a new line of their chicken burgers, its
design and production facilities will be based on the market research which would include the
demand for a new product.
1.5 Importance of marketing role
Marketing plays important role as the success of any organisation is directly based upon
its effective practices and implementation of marketing strategies. McDonald's is well
acknowledged about the importance of marketing due to this it keeps on developing news ideas
and find out effective ways of marketing. McDonald's has used an innovative marketing strategy
by introducing their prime mascot, Ronald McDonald to attract kids as well as teenagers towards
buying their products. Moreover, marketing strategy followed by McDonald's helps them to raise
the standard of living of their consumers by serving cost effective and quality products.
Effective marketing of its products has helped the organization in increasing its sales by adding
value to its products (Martell, D.A., 2018).
1.6 Significance of having effective interrelationships between different functional departments
In order to achieve goals and objectives of organisation it is crucial to have proper
coordination of the activities of various functional departments. There is need of proper
designing and implementation of market research, market planning to make future marketing
decisions. The interrelationship with different functional departments allows marketing to come
up with new creative and innovative ideas that will help in development of products. Good
coordination of marketing with other departments enable to gain better surveys for marketing the
products. It is important for a company like McDonald’s to establish coordination between its
different functional departments.
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TASK 2
2.1. Use of elements of marketing mix by organizations to achieve overall business objectives:
Marketing research of McDonald's deals with systematic and objective identification ,
collection, analysis and dissemination of customers taste and location. They conduct research to
find out the taste of their customers and develop their food and services according to their taste.
The main marketing objective of McDonald's is serve good food services for great value in
return. STP analysis for McDonald's are as follows:
Segmentation: McDonald's use to make products for people of different ages and has
different prices lines which includes low as well as high incomes as well. While having a
franchise McDonald's has analysed the cultural and religious atmosphere of different country and
then prepared the menu.
Target: McDonald's used to target kids, teenagers and families for marketing their
products in the market.
Positioning: As McDonald's performance is outstanding from initial times, they had
developed a unique image in the mind of customers. They keep on developing alternative
positioning strategy for different target markets in comparison to other competitors.
Marketing mix is one of basic element of marketing that an organisation uses to attain
their marketing goals and objectives. These elements includes 7 P's that is place, price,
promotion, people, place and physical. McDonald's has being working with its effective
marketing mix to gain competitive advantage. Moreover, it keeps making changes in marketing
strategies according to demand and preference of customers. Different organisation uses different
marketing mix to give competition to each other. Comparison between marketing mix of
McDonald's and Burger King are discussed below:
Elements of marketing mix McDonald's Burger King
Product Mcdonald's is recognized as
global brand as it serves its
products in various countries.
It serves wide variety of
standardized food products
including burgers, fries, snacks
Burger King adopted the
product strategy of 'have it
your way. This strategy helps
the burger king to differentiate
itself from other food and
beverages outlets. Burger King
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, desserts, shakes, chicken &
sandwiches. Big mac is
famous product that is
acknowledged worldwide.
Mcdonald's care for customers
sentiments towards religion
and culture due to which it has
adopted the strategy of Think
Global and Act Local. This
strategy has helped the
company to adapt its food
products and services in
various countries.
allows their customers to select
their orders by providing them
various choices of products.
The different products offered
by the Burger King includes
bacon, onion
rings,mayonnaise, tomatoes,
along with some healthy food
items which includes green
salad, vegetables rolls , fresh
apple slices and vegetable
wraps.
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Price McDonald's uses a wide range
of pricing tools and techniques
to sell its products in the
market of different countries.
Some of pricing techniques
implemented by McDonald's
are value pricing, local going
rate pricing, cost plus pricing.
The pricing of each food item
is adjusted according to the
country and location of
company outlets.
Burger King adopt competitive
pricing strategy as it has many
competitors in the market
which includes McDonald's,
Subway. In order to increase
the demand and preferences in
the market Burger King makes
changes in their pricing
strategy.
Place Mcdonald's has its market and
distribution channels in
various countries like Asia,
Africa, Europe, US etc. It has
around 36000 restaurants in
different countries. It prefers
to set up its restaurants outlets
in those areas were it is easy to
access and attract the
customers.(Marketing Mix Of
McDonald's, 2018)
Burger King is still focusing
on extending their market
share in various countries. It is
having around 13500 outlets in
various countries. Burger kings
outlets are running good in
various countries like Japan,
South Korea, Singapore,
Taiwan, Europe and Taiwan. It
also uses online portals foe
effective selling of their food
items in various countries.
Promotion McDonald's is very concerned
about promoting its products
in various countries. The main
objective of McDonald's is to
get in touch with country to
Burger King use to practices
and implement interactive
promotional strategy. By using
this strategy Burger King is
able to establish good
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extent their business
worldwide. In order to achieve
this target it implements
diversified marketing
techniques to promote its
products according to the
cultural and religion
preferences of a particular
country. It also uses the
strategy of Brand Globally,
Advertise locally. It does it
advertisement through
television, cinema, internet,
pamphlets, radio etc.
connection and relationship
with their customers. In order
to attract its targeted customers
and increase sales rate Burger
King uses different
promotional strategy for
different products.
People McDonald's majority of
businesses are managed and
controlled by local business
people. It has around 96,500
employees working together in
team to accomplish company
goals and objectives.
McDonald's provides
interactive career developing
programs and training
programs to enhance skills,
knowledge and attitude of
employees so that they can
perform well. The main aim is
achieve satisfaction of
employees and customers.
Burger King is growing well
their business and manpower.
It has around 34,000
employees all over the world
with 11 million customers per
day. The reason behind this
growth is that Burger King
management motivates their
employees to behave in
culturally accepted way. This
process helps in strengthen
their customer loyalty and
build good relationship with
employees.
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Process The process of Mcdonald's is
different as it ensures complete
transparency while preparing
food items for their customers.
Customers are able to see the
whole preparation process.
Other aspects of process on
McDonald's focus is to limit
time frame in which customer
places the orders and waits for
it.
As the company exerts high
pressure in developing
competitive strategies like
McDonald's and Subway, the
company is using transparent
measures and method of food
preparation or product
development.
Physical evidence In context with physical
evidence McDonald's outlets
interiors are attractive with
cleanliness. In many big
countries it has improved
many services which includes
automated order machines,
music, free Wi-fi, special
space for McCafe, Drive Thru.
Mcdonald's emphasis on
physical evidences which
includes cleanliness, quality
food delivery, fast service with
transparency.
Burger King focuses on
employees and customers
retention. It indulge all
resources in developing a
well cultured environment in
its outlets. Burger King has
effective seating arrangements,
uniformed staffs, air
conditioning, disposal cans and
dustbins. It also has effective
accessible water coolers and
electronic facilities which
includes trendy music, Wi-Fi
connection and television
screen. It also serve colourful
themes to their customers in
order to give some refreshment
to the customers.
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TASK 3
3.1. Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for the organisation
Marketing Plan:
Following is the marketing plan for McPasta, which is a unique recipe invented by the
extremely talented team of world class chefs of McDonald's. The marketing strategy will include
aggressive advertising in the UK focusing on the unique blend of flavours and innovative
presentation of this dish(Blakeman, 2018).
Company Overview:
Incorporated in 1955. McDonald's is a global leader of the food service organisations.
The company operates in six continents with more than 37,000 restaurants active all around the
world. Moreover, the firm has unmatched competencies in real estate, restaurant operations,
marketing, retailing and franchising. McDonald's also a leader in regards to Corporate Social
Responsibilities.
Mission and Vision:
Vision: The vision of McDonald's through McPasta is to reinvent uniqueness of the taste
of its products and attract more attention from UK customers who prefer taste of the food over
every other element.
Mission: The mission of this company is to attain maximum customer satisfaction
through its exceptional service quality, hygienic environment, affordable pricing and most
importantly through more inclination towards its Corporate Social Responsibilities.
Strategic Objective:
McDonald's aims to achieve 5% increase in its customer base in a period of 6 months
following the sale of McPasta. The firm would use aggressive promotional strategies through
compelling TV advertisements and online marketing to attract more customers in UK (Chernev,
2018).
Products and Services:
As the biggest name in fast-food outlets of United Kingdom, McDonald's provide a huge
variety of food items like hamburgers, cheeseburgers, breakfast sandwiches, salads, egg muffins,
wraps, chicken nuggets, French fries and soft drinks. The services provided by the company are
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providing a space for parties and celebrations, visual and musical entertainment, Wi-Fi and arch
cards.
Market Research:
The marketing team of McDonald's is responsible for conducting a detailed research of
customer trends in UK. This includes their preferences in tastes, food presentations, current
satisfaction level of the customers, and changes required in business operations. A thorough
market research was conducted which set a base for the development of McPasta (Burns, Bush
and Sinha, 2014).
Target Market:
This refers to potential group of customers most likely to purchase McDonald's products.
Since the possibility of them buying the firm's products is high, the company implements its
effective market strategies to gain their attention(Tanner and Raymond, 2015). For McPunch,
segmentation, targeting and positioning is used to determine the target market:
 Segmentation: Under this, the market is divided into certain groups depending on certain
characteristics which are as follows:
▪ Geographic: This segment considers the geographical locations of the customers.
For McPasta, UK has been chosen as a potential market.
▪ Demographic: Breakdown in this factor is on the basis of combinations of age,
gender, marital status, education etc. General populations above the age 10
belonging to any social class has been chosen for McPasta,
▪ Lifestyle: This segment deals with hobbies, entertainment and other non-work
time pursuits. General population who loves to eat quality foods acts as a segment
for the product.
▪ Behavioural: This focuses on the behaviour of individuals, for instance, their
nature towards buying food items, brand loyalty, different usage levels, etc. Since
the firm wants to attract more customers, a segment of potential loyal customers is
created. Targeting: This part of the process deals with targeting a specific segment which the
company feels fit to boost up the sales of its products. However, with different business
environmental needs, the constitution of target market needs constant changes. Targeting
a potential market can be a potential factor for success of McPasta. All the general public
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above 12 and below 60 will be targeted by the firm for this product (Möller, K. and
Parvinen, P., 2015).
 Positioning: This is the last step of this process, and aims at developing the most
effective positioning strategy for the product. There is consistent demand for innovative
products like McPasta, the curiosity for such items is very high and company outlets are
the most feasible options for placing this product(Gengler and Mulvey, 2017).
Marketing Mix:
Marketing mix is referred to the combination of 7 p's of marketing: product, price, place,
promotion, people, process and physical evidence. The marketing team of McDonald's will have
to use a perfect blend of these elements to effectively sell a product like McPasta and develop a
stronger customer base in UK.
Marketing Budget:
PARTICULARS 1st Year 2nd Year 3rd Year 4th Year 5th Year
INITIAL MONEY 6000 7000 10000 15000 16000
INVESTMENT 3000 4000 5000 6000 9000
TOTAL 9000 11000 15000 21000 25000
MARKETING
OUTLAY
PROMOTION 5000 8000 8000 11000 15000
SALES
PUBLICITY
6000 7000 10000 11000 14000
TOTAL 11000 15000 18000 22000 29000
CONCLUSION
The above assignment concludes that marketing is the most essential factor in driving
organisations towards success. It is vital for the marketing managers of McDonald's to use
efficient marketing strategies to achieve better business outcomes. The marketing department
interrelates with other functional departments and is dependant towards these for formulating the
best marketing strategies for the firm. Different organisations use elements of marketing mix
differently depending on their marketing strategies to attract potential buyers. Lastly, it is crucial
for a company like McDonald's to develop a detail marketing plan which helps it achieve its
objectives regarding the new product they wish to launch.
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REFERENCES
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Blakeman, R., 2018. Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to
implementation. Rowman & Littlefield.
Burns, A. C., Bush, R. F. and Sinha, N., 2014. Marketing research
Chernev, A., 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.
Dibb, S. and Simkin, L., 2013. Marketing essentials. Cengage Learning.
Gengler, C.E. and Mulvey, M.S., 2017. Planning pre-launch positioning: Segmentation via
willingness-to-pay and means-end brand differentiators. Journal of Brand
Management, 24(3), pp.230-249.
Jobber, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2012. Principles and practice of marketing (No. 7th).
McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Malhotra, N. K., Birks, D. F. and Wills, P., 2013. Essentials of marketing research. Pearson.
Martell, D.A., 2018. Marketing Information and New Technology. In Management Information
Systems: The Technology Challenge (pp. 161-181). Routledge.
McDonald, M. and Wilson, H., 2016. Marketing Plans: How to prepare them, how to profit from
them. John Wiley & Sons.
Möller, K. and Parvinen, P., 2015. An impact-oriented implementation approach in business
marketing research: Introduction to the Special Issue on “Implementing Strategies and
Theories of B2B Marketing and Sales Management”. Industrial Marketing
Management, 45, pp.3-11.
Nagle, T.T. and Müller, G., 2017. The strategy and tactics of pricing: A guide to growing more
profitably. Routledge.
Tanner, J. and Raymond, M., 2015. Principles of marketing. University of Minnesota Libraries
Publishing.
Online
Marketing Mix Of McDonald's. 2018. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.howandwhat.net/marketing-mix-mcdonalds-mcdonalds-marketing-mix/>.
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