Marketing Essentials: Analyzing McDonald's Marketing Strategies Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of McDonald's marketing strategies, encompassing the roles and responsibilities of the marketing function within the organization. It explores the significance of the marketing mix elements, including product, price, place, and promotion, in achieving organizational objectives. The report examines the interrelationships between marketing and other functional units, such as human resources, IT, customer support, and operations management, highlighting their collaborative efforts. Furthermore, it proposes a basic marketing plan for McDonald's, detailing steps such as situation analysis, setting objectives, and developing marketing strategies. The report also includes a comparison of McDonald's marketing mix with that of Subway, and discusses various marketing tactics and organizational planning elements. The report emphasizes the importance of adapting to changes in the marketing environment and provides insights into developing effective marketing strategies for the fast-food industry.

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1 : The role of marketing and its relation with the other functions within the McDonald's 3
P1 The key roles and responsibilities of the marketing functions within the McDonald's....3
The roles and responsibilities of Marketing in the context of marketing environment..........4
P2 Roles and responsibilities of marketing within the McDonald's.......................................5
TASK 2 : .........................................................................................................................................5
Importance of interrelationships between Marketing and other functional units of the
McDonald's.............................................................................................................................5
TASK 3 : Basic marketing plan for the McDonald's.......................................................................8
P4 Developing and evaluation of a Marketing plan for the McDonald's...............................8
Coherent based evident for McDonald.................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................12
Books and Journals ..............................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
In order to survive in the competitive world, the knowledge of marketing theories and their
importance is very important. Any organisation needs an effective marketing strategy in order to
promote the business.(Dibb and Simkin,2013) This report describes the various roles and
responsibilities of marketing functions within the McDonald's. The study also defines the ways
in which the McDonald's use the marketing mix elements to achieve their organisational
objectives and goals. Furthermore, a marketing plan is also suggested for the organisation in the
following report.
TASK 1 : The role of marketing and its relation with the other functions
within the McDonald's
P1 The key roles and responsibilities of the marketing functions within the McDonald's.
Every organisation has an effective marketing department, the marketing plays a very
important role in the promotion of the business and the objective of the organisation. The
marketing department of an organisation like the McDonald's is responsible for presenting the
business or company, and it also creates the elements as well as ways in which the organisation
can be represented among the people and market(Kotler and McDougall,2014). The marketing
plays various roles which are interrelated with the organisational functions as mentioned below -
 Managing and defining the brand – The marketing department of the McDonald's helps
the organisation to define what they are, what they stand for, what they say about
themselves, what they do and how they act. In simple words it means to manage and
define the company or brand in front of the customers and other organisations or partners
in a effective way. For example in a conference or meeting.
 To conduct management programs and campaign for marketing – The Marketing identify
the services and products of an organisation and try to focus on increasing the sales, The
management and marketing functions work together to develop the most effective
promotion strategy for the company.
 Developing promotional and marketing materials – The next role of marketing is to
produce and develop the various significant material for promoting the services and
products in the market. The McDonald's effectively performs these functions to promote
the various products which they launch(Hair and et.al 2013).

 Developing most suitable content for the company's website – The another role played by
the marketing team of an organisation is to search and develop the most effective as well
as beneficial content for there websites. This helps in providing the information of the
company in an attractive manner to gain the attention of the customers. The management
team assist the marketing department while designing these websites content.
 Managing and monitoring the social media marketing – The Marketing team is focusing
on the online promotion of an organisation. The company can obtain attention of the
customers by actively promoting their products and services on the social media websites
such as twitter, instagram etc. The management within the organisation creates a special
online marketing team for managing these social media accounts and
pages(Mishra,2016).
The roles and responsibilities of Marketing in the context of marketing environment.
Due to the changes in the marketing or business environment an organisation's marketing
team needs to perform some essential roles and responsibilities in order to sustain and adapt the
changing environment. The various roles of marketing in a changing marketing environment are
as follows -
 Market research – The changes in the marketing environment can be a failure if not
analysed effectively. The marketing team of the organisation needs to conduct a market
research to identify the change in the marketing environment within a target market. This
helps the marketing team of the company to develop the most effective strategies
according to the changing environment. The changes can be technical or ethical, the
company needs to adapt and manage the marketing strategies to survive and sustain.
 Monitoring marketing environment – A marketing manager within an organisation needs
to effectively monitor and analyse the marketing environment, it enables him to identify
the opportunities in the changing marketing environment which can assist them to
achieve success(Purvis,2016).
 Developing the marketing plans and strategies – The most important task or role of the
marketing team is to analyse the marketing environment and make proper strategies for
promoting their business products and services considering the changes in the business
environment.

P2 Roles and responsibilities of marketing within the McDonald's
The McDonald's is leading brand in the food industry currently, it has a global existence
and a huge marketing segment around the world. It also has a number of competitors in the
market such as Domino's, US pizza etc. which also serves the same products and services. Even
after providing the same products and services at almost similar prizes the McDonald's is the
leading choice of the customers, and this is only because of their effective marketing strategies.
The Marketing team of the McDonald's is playing a very effective role in the success of the
company through developing various marketing strategies and plans to promote the products and
services. Each and every functions and departments of an organisation are interrelated. The
relations among the various functions within the McDonald's are described below -
1. Human Resource – The Marketing function of the McDonald's requires a effective
workforce or staff like the Marketing team. It encourages the Human resource team to
search for the best talent within the market and hire an effective marketing team
members. The Marketing team also helps the company to attract the human resources to
be a part of the organisation.
2. IT functions – The marketing team of the McDonald's develops various types of
marketing plans for example the content for their websites, These contents are
implemented to the websites with the help of IT department within the McDonald's. The
other forms of advertisement and technology related promotions of the marketing
strategies are also handled and managed by the Information technology department of the
organisation.
3. Customer support – The Marketing functions of the McDonald's includes the various
activities such as special services to the customers, promotional calls etc. All these
activities are implemented by the Customer support team. The customer support
individuals helps the company to provide effective services to the customers which leads
to the successful implementation of the marketing strategies.
4. Operations management/production
 The marketing department will need to work closely with the production department to
ensure that:
 Adequate research and development is planned to satisfy current and future customer
needs

 The item can be manufactured to the quality and design specifications laid down by the
consumer
 The volume of orders generated by marketing can be met within the time schedule
required for delivery
TASK 2 :
P.3 Comparison between ways organisation apply marketing mix
The Marketing Marketing mix of McDonald's which can be describe as follows:
 Product: McDonald's is always on the top in serving the good and quality product as per
the customer demand and taste. McDonald's keeps on changing the variety of the product
and introducing the new product in the market. Products are Burgers, deserts,
sandwiches, French fries, cold coffee, mac puffs etc. McDonald holds the variety
according to the taste of the local environment. McDonald maintains the unique taste as
there is competitive brand of the same product.
 Price : Price is the main cause which has totally changed the image of McDonald. It has
introduced much reduced price burgers for the budget people to afford.
 Place: McDonald always choose clean and crowded environment for their stores as in
malls, highways etc. It also provides 24hour facility opened for many stores. It has
intensive distribution of product through most of the channels and also spacious store for
public comfort.
 Promotion: McDonald adopts many channels for advertising and promotion. It has
extended promotion with internet, TV, social media, hoardings etc. It also avails schemes
in the days of festival and provides offers and discounts to attract customers and grow the
company profit.
The Marketing mix of Subway which can be describe as follows:
 Product: Subway has a huge variety of vegetarian recipe hence it is well known for
chicken and chorizo melt, meatball marinara, chicken teriuaki etc. It has been served in
many countries as per the taste of the concern people, regarding the items it has variants
in the product according to the place.
 Price: Subway has marked its premium price as compared to the other brand. In the
pricing policy it provides high quality product in affordable price(Hult and
Ketchen,2017).

 Place: Subway has widely expanded its stores across many countries which includes both
eat-in and take away services. Store are furnished well with high class interior and
decorum to attract more customers. Store are located in shopping malls, airports,
amusements park and at many more place.
 Promotion: Subway implements many modern techniques to promote the brand such as
advertising online, via social media, news and through many other sources.
 Various tactics of an organisation
 Planning: In an organisation there is a need of proper plan designed for the functioning of
company and smarter techniques to make the operation easy and fast. Proper acquisition
of methods and distribution of department to the skilled and known employees.
 Elimination of Barrier: The important factor to achieve the objective of the company,
primarily identify the problems faced while the process and plans to resolve them with
the perfect solution.
 Deadline for objective: The company should have certain deadline to achieve the goal as
such marking the deadline helps in innovating new ideas to complete the task easily and
before the concerned deadline.
 Mission: An organisation should set a vision for the target in which leader would
instructs the employees to analyse the vision by giving their best to achieve their
objective.
 Rewards &Motivation: The organisation would conduct events and seminars for retaining
and raising motivation to the employees so that they will work hard and give their best to
the company(Hisrich and Ramadani,2017).
 Measure performance: According to the work in the department every employees have
different performance as their work so the management would measure the performance
with the rating to the employees.
 Think innovative: With the creating mind and innovative the manager had to give the
ideas to the company for the growth of the company.
 Decision making: The management should make a proper decision strategy discussing
with the groups and skilled employee so that it can make the profit for the company and
to raise the image of the company.

TASK 3 : Basic marketing plan for the McDonald's.
P4 Developing and evaluation of a Marketing plan for the McDonald's
The various businesses or organisations operating within a market may have positive as
well as negative outcomes. The main reason for the failure of an organisation can be minimum
focus the short term objectives or focusing only on the long term organisational goals. The
organisation should give importance to the short term goals and performance to enable the
development of the market segment. A good marketing plan helps an organisation to gain
positive brand image and popularity within a market(McDonald and Wilson,2016). The
marketing team of the McDonald's needs to develop an effective marketing plan to compete in
the market. The various steps for developing a marketing plan in the McDonald's are as follows -
 Situation analysis – The McDonald's should perform a situation analysis in order to
identify the various elements of the market, the competitors, market changes, new
entrants and opportunities. In order to survive and sustain the leading position in the
market situation analysis is very essential. The McDonald's marketing team needs to
perform various activities and research on the market conditions.
 Swot Analysis:
Strength: McDonald is the main market contender in the fast food eatery network. It has solid
brand picture and name, which gives its greater fame among its customers.
Weaknesses: McDonald has constrained item expansion, which can influence its business. Its
reliance on western market is currently going to decay.
Opportunities:The brand can offer discretionary allergen free nourishment things like gluten and
nut free sustenance to its customers. The brand can join its business with the retailers.
Threat: The sustenance mark needs to confront the forceful rivalry with some different rivals in
the market. GMO drift and diverse directions can be incredible danger for this brand.
 Setting the new target markets – The McDonald's should focus on expanding into new
market areas or segments. The Marketing team should analyse and identify the new
market segments to grow and develop its business. The new markets help an organisation
to grab new opportunities and increase the profitability of the business(Andaleeb and
Hasan,2016).
 Marketing goals – The next step if to set new objectives and goals of the organisation.
The McDonald's may set new goals and objectives for their company. The Marketing

team can select a new target goal that needed to be achieved through the marketing plan.
The new marketing plan will be designed considering the new objectives, For example to
increase the sales of a new product, the marketing team can make plans to promote a new
product such as advertisement for the product launched, discounts etc(Wedel and
Kannan,2016).
 The Budget for the Marketing plan – In order to develop and implement a new marketing
plan for the organisation the McDonald's needs to analyse the budget requirements for the
same. For example – The advertisement for the product that is launched, the company
needs to identify the budget for the making of the advertisement. The Marketing team
could calculate the budget for the advertisement and according to the most suitable
budget an effective advertisement can be created(Kraus and et.al,2016).
 Product: McDonald standing at peak level of the eatery maker globally would have to
take measure to maintain the image in the market as the increasing competitive market.
Product which are now trending to the taste of the people. McDonald have introduced
variety of new product as like pizza, and other beverages so that the customer would
retain and increase the demand for the product which will take McDonald brands to the
level where it would be known globally by taste and product quality.
 Price: Now in the present time, price also plays a vital role to the low budget families. A
price which could be affordable to the middle class family. This issue is also regarding
the quality given by McDonald at price which is considered somehow much more than
the price of same product of other companies. Hence, McDonald company has to take
measures to avail better product at premium pricing.
 Place: As now McDonald has expanded in many countries across the world but then also
according to the survey through the people get to know about the complaints of
McDonald store for improper decorum, delay in service, imperfect response from the
employees. To avoid such issues McDonald had to make some innovative plans for the
betterment of the company also to be the world' s ranking retail store. And should make
availability of store on places where it is not present.
 Promotion: Awareness of the brand among the people should increase so as there are
many forms of marketing strategies which the multinational brands are following.
McDonald would reform the advertising field through increasing source of promoting the

product for e.g. Online surveys, customer feedback, boarding in cities, social media
marketing etc.
Coherent based evident for McDonald
 Promotion and Innovation: McDonald is continuously supplying the improved quality
product with new trends to the customer as per the customer demand. Unique identity of
the product makes the McDonald company different from others. It has always been
surprising people with better taste and quality of product(Hamzah and Sutanto,2016).
 Research & Development: McDonald's has implemented new methods for maintaining
the quality of product as per the customer taste through the review of the customers.
 Approved distribution centres: McDonald's has expanded many distribution centres and
online stores for the purchasing of the which affect the in the growth of the company. The
store are in convenience to the customer so that it could increase the sale rural areas too.
Uniform menu system: implementation of the uniform menu system which shows the availability
of the product at the time of purchase so it feels comfort for the customer to buy the product they
want.

CONCLUSION
The Marketing functions are the key elements in the achievement of the organisational
objectives. The Marketing is a way to represent an organisation or brand in front of the
customers, partners etc. The above report concluded that the Marketing plays a variety of
necessary functions within an organisation with context to McDonald's. The Report also includes
the difference between the marketing strategies of the McDonald's and the Subway. Furthermore,
the report also consist a new marketing plan for the McDonald's to implement in their marketing
strategies.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dibb, S. and Simkin, L., 2013. Marketing essentials. Cengage Learning.
Kotler, P. and McDougall, G.H., 2014. Marketing essentials(Vol. 556). Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Hair, J.F., Celsi, M.W., Ortinau, D.J. and Bush, R.P., 2013.Essentials of marketing research.
McGraw-Hill/Higher Education.
Mishra, A., 2016. Customer Story.
Purvis, J., 2016. Human Resources Marketing and Recruiting: Essentials of Digital
Recruiting. Handbook of Human Resources Management, pp.53-71.
McDonald, M. and Wilson, H., 2016. Marketing Plans: How to prepare them, how to profit from
them. John Wiley & Sons.
Harmeling, C.M., Palmatier, R.W., Fang, E. and Wang, D., 2017. Group marketing: theory,
mechanisms, and dynamics.Journal of Marketing.
Andaleeb, S.S. and Hasan, K., 2016. Marketing Research. InStrategic Marketing Management in
Asia: Case Studies and Lessons across Industries (pp. 111-160). Emerald Group
Publishing Limited.
Wedel, M. and Kannan, P.K., 2016. Marketing analytics for data-rich environments. Journal of
Marketing, 80(6), pp.97-121.
Hult, G.T.M. and Ketchen, D.J., 2017. Disruptive marketing strategy. AMS Review, pp.1-6.
Hamzah, S.B. and Sutanto, J.E., 2016. The Role of Marketing Mix (7P) for Consumer Buying
Decision Pastry Cake in Malang City
Kraus, S. and et.al 2016. Standardisation vs. adaption: a conjoint experiment on the influence of
psychic, cultural and geographical distance on international marketing mix
decisions. European Journal of International Management,10(2), pp.127-156.
Hisrich, R.D. and Ramadani, V., 2017. Entrepreneurial Marketing Mix. In Effective
Entrepreneurial Management (pp. 75-99). Springer International Publishing.