McDonald's Marketing Strategies: A Case Study for Semester 2

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Marketing essentials
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................................... 3
LO1......................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Marketing strategies................................................................................................................................................ 5
P2 &M2........................................................................................................................................................................... 6
LO3................................................................................................................................................................................ 15
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................................. 20
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INTRODUCTION
Marketing is a type of business function and set of rules and regulations which involves
creating, developing, researching, communicating, maintain a relationship with customers
and it is also based on science and art and etc. Marketing is based on organization target,
goals and motive. Marketing helps the business to come to know about the needs of the
customers and try to make sure that their needs will fulfill (Babin and Zikmund, 2015).
Mac donalds is an American fast food company, founded in 1940 as a restaurant started by
Richard and Maurice Mac donalds, in San Bernardino, California, United States. Firstly they
started with small level by opening a restaurant but after some time they had established a
company and then franchise to other people for increment in their business. And now it has
expanded all over the world and in most of the popular countries. Mac donalds is a world
largest chain in the business of food it provides good quality of food with assurance. It
serves service to 70 million customers every day in most of the countries something 100
countries. They are specialized if cheeseburgers, French fries, cold drink, chicken, breakfast
and etc. It also gives employment to most of the unemployed in many ways.
Here we will discuss about roles and responsibility of marketing function and each and
everything about the rules which an organization has to keep in mind for the welfare of the
organization and employee both and also about the context of marketing environment
interrelated with the external environment and another point is that we will discuss about
the interconnection between an organization and the market and one more thing we will
discuss is that marketing planning and business planning and about 7P’s and the
strategies which an organization has to keep in mind for business profit and for achieving
goals and objective.
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LO1
Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.
An organization maintains various roles and responsibility for their business. Marketing
plays a vital role in maintaining the relationship between business and customers. It
follows various roles for development and maintains responsibility for achieving goals and
objective. There are various roles and responsibility follow by MacDonald’s for expanding
their business and to satisfy their customers need and their taste. The roles and
responsibility follows by McDonald are as follows:
Defining objective
The main function of MacDonald’s is to determining objective and they work on the basis of
the objective. They plan each and everything according to the objective. It involves all the
process which helps to gain an objective. Their objective is to achieve a goal and fulfil the
target and expand their business and satisfy their customers need and requirements
(Malhotra, 2015).
Identification of customers’ needs
This is another function of the marketing function of McDonald’s is to satisfy customers
need. They design the product according to the need of customers they develop taste in the
food according to the customers taste. They are making everything according to their
customer their motive is to fulfil the need of customer they make sure that what their
customers actually need from them. In food the customers want good taste with the good
quality, they maintain each and everything and customers also want a hygiene
environment because the customers are health conscious and they want the food without
any chemicals so the McDonalds keep all the point of view of the customer (Blythe and
Martin, 2019).
Marketing strategies
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Marketing function allows McDonald’s to adopt a strategy to sustain in this competitive
world and by strategy they can face the competitive market, nowadays every business has
their own strategy and skills for expanding their business and the McDonald’s also adopt
some strategy to come over this competitive world .they make the strategy according to
their needs and for the profit motive (Pike, 2015).
Innovate
McDonald’s launched their food product with innovations and with new ideas because the
customers always attract with new ideas. They always launched a new food product in the
market and always try to improve the taste because the taste of the customers also change
when there is some change in the market. They also want the same thing at that time that is
why McDonald’s focuses on taste and develop new ideas and a new technique to satisfy
their customer.
Advertisement
McDonald’s does advertisement with the help of television and by social media and by
giving a discount. Advertisement is done for the promotion of the product, Mac donalds
also has done this same thing customer attract and come to know about the brand or about
an organization (Morgan et al., 2019).
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Roles of marketing related with other functional unit
In today’s world, all type of market is equal. Both the large and small scale industries are
facing competition. Because the customers are quality assurance thus MacDonald’s also
maintain quality. Large and small organization have competition for the same market and
the most innovative thing is that the customers firstly give preference to small scale
industry because in that they have to give less price than any other large place but Mac
Donald’s maintain quality and minimum price so the customers go through to MacDonald’s
of going an where.
Competition has increased day by day so the MacDonald’s also keeping some changes in
their taste periodically. The motive of doing this thing is to keep their customers mind
constant. Mac Donald’s always tries to satisfy the customers need so that their mind will
not change from Mac Donald’s (Blythe and Martin, 2019).
Relationship between market and organization
There is a relationship between market and organization because the organization depends
upon the market. The organization connects with the external market if there are some
changes changing in the market then organization also have to make some changes in their
strategy and policies and make a new plan according to the changes. The work done in an
organization is not for the only organization but also for marketing purpose there is always
connectivity between the market and business in every sense (Pike, 2015).
Now let’s discuss the point which linked between organization and market
Human resource
Human resource management is the main function which works within the organization
which include the work of recruitment and selection, training and the technically and
professionally development of an employee and the workers. It also includes the
motivation given by the organization to their employee for work hard and forgetting the
goal and for the welfare of the organization.
IT (internet, social media, websites)
In Today’s world, everyone is familiar with information technology and with Social Media
and the internet. Mac donalds do their advertisement on social media, it also made their
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own website where anyone can go and search about each and everything about
MacDonald’s like which type of food they provide and price when and where this company
was launched and the varieties and about the quality the rating rates of customers.
Finance department
The marketing department works with the finance department, there is an interrelation
between the marketing and finance department.
The organization take any decision by keeping in mind the budget because without budget
they cannot do any of the work but MacDonald’s has always sufficient budget to do any
work because the reputation in market is well good so any finance company give finance to
McD then it is easy for them to take any decisions because the goodwill.
Significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional units of
the organization
Product and Service Management
McDonalds is one of the world’s leading food service. Their main aim is to provide the
highest quality of food to their customers. The main aim of McD is to encourage more and
more customers so that the growth rate in the company increases linearly. Service
management requires paying proper attention to their customers and ensuring that
customer satisfaction is about 100 per cent. The interrelationship between product and
service management and marketing includes proper service to the customers so that while
marketing this strategy can be used as an advantage, also the good quality of food served in
a healthy and safe environment ensures customer increment. Variety in the menu is the
main focus of the production and marketing team (Blythe and Martin, 2019).
Finance Management
Finance management includes finding investors who would invest in the business. As far as
Mcd is concerned as McD has now become one of the fastest growing food chains, there are
many investors who are willing to invest in Mcd. However, the main income of McD is from
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the outlets, rents and franchises which they have given. The interrelationship between
marketing and finance ensures that there is sufficient amount of budget to market as well
as there is no compromise in the quality of the food or service to the customers.
Purchasing
MacDonald’s ensures that the food quality is not compromised at any costs, therefore, they
deal with the highest quality of raw materials and hence they produce the highest quality of
food. This is the sole reason that the customers’ expectations are high from the company.
The goal of the company is to spread the outlets in as many parts of the world as possible
(Malhotra, 2015).
Promotion
Promotion is indirectly related to the marketing strategy. The sole purpose of the
marketing strategy is to ensure that sales are increasing. They use advertisements,
pamphlets and now they also have launched their play store app where they introduce the
customers with the hard to resist offers, encouraging them to buy their goods from the
outlets.
Risk Management
The main aim of McD is to increase its customer count. However, customers prefer clean
and hygienic places. Also, they prefer that the decor of the place is nice. Most people don't
prefer the green look in the places. They consider it obese and unfit for consumption.
Therefore the above factors are to be considered for good marketing. New management
should be formed to resolve such issues (Malhotra, 2015).
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LO2
Ways in which different organizations apply the marketing mix to the marketing
planning process to achieve business objectives.
The marketing mix is a marketing strategy tool which was initially limited to 4P's i.e.
product, price, place and promotion
The 4P’s were established when the aim of the companies was to only sell their products
and there was no relation between the consumer and the company. Many Later people,
processes and physical evidence were introduced. These 7P's now encouraged the
marketing department to ensure the quality service to the people
Product
McD evolves as the fastest growing food chain. It sells a variety of fast foods such as
vegetarian, non-vegetarian and shakes. There is a separate kitchen area for vegetarian and
non- vegetarian food. As there is a variety to choose from the customers don’t look for
some other place and hence the profits are increased. The quality of fast food is kept high
as the customers pay for the quality. The company also claims to make the food healthier,
but although the food tastes good, the food at McD is still considered as unhealthy and
prone to obesity.
Price
The price of McD is said to be in a reasonable amount as the company claims that they
provide the best food and they export the highest quality of raw materials from various
nations. It is a low-cost food company. They also provide hard to resist combos where the
person saves some amount. Although McD is a bit expensive, the quality is not
compromised, in this way MacDonald’s achieves its business objectives. As McD maintains
its quality, therefore, the business is flourishing (Babin and Zikmund, 2015).
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Place
Mcd is mostly located at the prime locations such as Malls, shopping complexes and stores
etc. It is also located in the major urban areas, as well as rural areas. It covers most of the
big cities and is easily accessible to every person, in this way MacDonald’s achieves its
business objectives. Also, most of the highways are covered by Mcd so whenever the
customers are travelling they can easily find the place. The easy availability of the stores
ensures that a large number of customers dine in.
Promotion
As McD is a leading company various promotional methods are used to lure the customers
such as advertising through radio, TV, digital marketing, Apps, Newspaper, pamphlets etc.
McD also introduced home delivery to ensure that the customers are benefitted at any
point in time, in this way MacDonald’s achieves its business objectives. Other types of
promotions include children oriented schemes such as adding toys as an additional
discounted price with combo offers. Other types of schemes include scratch cards, bonus
points (Kotler et al., 2017).
People
McD has a wide number of customers and hence a cooperative and good quality service
staff is required for the customer’s satisfaction. The main targeted customers are children
where the staff has to pay extra attention to the children so that they could remain as loyal
customers (Blythe and Martin, 2019).
Physical evidence
Physical evidence includes how the food is cooked or we can say how much transparency
does the company offers while cooking the food for consumption, in this way MacDonald’s
achieves its business objectives. Interior of the restaurant which McD offers should be
clean and should be warm so that the customers could stay there for a long time.
Processes
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McD allows the customers to take a look at the ingredients and the processes about how
their food is being made and how safe is that food for consumption, in this way MacDonald
achieves its business objectives. Several schemes are launched where some of the
participants are allowed to monitor the quality of the food while in making (Fahy and
Jobber, 2015).
Different tactics applied by organizations to demonstrate how business objectives
have been achieved.
There are several tactics which are applied by Mac Donald’s to demonstrate the business
objectives, they never compromise on their food quality. They launch several offers from
time to time to maintain their loyalty towards customers, the new scheme launched by
them introduces them to the whole new world of apps where using the apps they get
several offers at the old rates of about 10 years ago (Chernev, 2018). Also their old
techniques included the customers to give their feedback using their bill number and the
customers get around ten percent off on their next orders, engaging the customers to yet
again visit their restaurants to get the whole new experiences of offers and again the
customer becomes a regular customer. The customers are also attended by well-
maintained staff which attends the customers warm heartedly.
There are several different strategies where business objectives can be achieved:-
Product and service strategy
The main aim of this strategy is to earn profits by improving their products and ensuring
that a large number of customers are benefitted by the new addition. In McD new flavours
in their burgers are introduced from time to time. This is done because regular customers
seek change in their flavours as same tastes counts for little or no interest. A variety range
of burgers as well as beverages is introduced in their menus from time to time (Baker,
2016).
High price strategy and low price strategy
The prices of the restaurants are revised from time to time as customers love discounted
items. At some point of time when the customer frequency is low, some discounts are given
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so that the discounts are availed by the customers at that point of time, the sales increases
and as the customer count was low at that particular time, profit rate also increases (Baker
and Saren, 2016).
Optimizing operational costs
Lowering operational costs ensures high efficiency and low finance. Operational costs can
be lowered by ensuring that the computers installed are of the latest technology and also
hiring contract based employs so that the additional benefits to be given reduces. Other
methods which could be used are, acquiring some rented areas where there is less rent but
investing in the decor, investing in new and improved equipment for quick delivery fewer
queues.
Marketing strategies for more customers
Marketing strategies such as using promotions can be used to acquire more customers.
Analyzing the competition of the market and making small changes in the previous
products to ensure new and innovative product. McD makes changes in their burgers from
time to time to ensure that their competitors such as burger king don't outnumber its
performance (Bagozzi et al., 2018).
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