The Marketing Mix: Product and Branding Strategies for McDonalds Company - Research Paper Example

?Introduction This report is intended to conduct an analysis of the product and market strategies of McDonalds, one of the world’s largest fast food chains. McDonalds is spread across more than 32,000 locations across the world. The huge success of the brand can be attributed to brand promises to which the company holds to. The first part of the report will give an analysis of two main product attributes of McDonalds. A product positioning map will be used to analyze the strategic position of the brand in terms of the competitors. The next part of the report will give an analysis of the major branding strategies adopted by McDonalds. Product Positioning Map This part of the report is intended to provide an insight about the two major product attributes of McDonalds. No other fast food brand was as successful as that of McDonalds in terms of branding. This huge success can be attributed to the extreme focus given to product attributes. Quick Service and Family Orientation (Especially Children) are the two of the major product attributes of McDonalds that differentiate itself from the competitors. Based on these attributes, a product positioning map can be created for McDonalds. Refer Appendix 1. The product positioning map gives a clear representation of the focus given by various fast food market leaders. Quick service and family focus are two main attributes on which McDonalds compete. The map shows clearly that no other fast food brands focus on these attributes than that of McDonalds. Quick service is almost a common attribute for all the brands. All the competitors listed above scores good in terms of quick services. But none of these brands provide family focus in their advertisements. This is one of the reasons for McDonald’s additional revenue from the children customer group. Target market: Like any other fast food chain, the target market of McDonalds is the people who like have a fun place to eat with friends, family, colleagues and even alone while rushing towards the office. One can find all categories of customers at a McDonald’s restaurant. Therefore, the target customer groups of McDonalds can be classified as Parents with Children, Children, Business Customers and Teenagers. (McDonalds UK, 2008) Each customer groups have their own purpose for visiting a McDonald’s store. For parents, they want to take the children out for a nice meal. For children they want to have fun at the restaurant than that of the food. While for the business customers, it is a quick grab meal within their busy office schedules and finally for the teenagers, it is a hang out place with stylish menu. There is not much difference in the target market for other brands. But McDonalds give an additional focus for branding aimed at children so that the parents are being pulled to the restaurants by their kids. Product Strategy: McDonalds classify their menu under three classifications namely permanent menu, temporary menu, local products and local adaptation. “McDonald's features several products on their menu that are permanent and do not change. Examples of this include their basic hamburger and cheeseburger, the Big Mac and the Quarter Pounder.” (Clark, 2011) The main product strategy of McDonalds is to make frequent changes in the menu. McDonalds make changes in the menu over time as per the changes in the customer preferences and attitudes. Such products are mostly the temporary products. At the same time customers are also not flooded with too many menus. McDonalds makes it a point that no new product will cannibalize the sales of an existing product. The marketing efforts of each menu are based on the life cycle stage on which the product is. Another product strategy of McDonalds is localization of the products. McDonalds had identified that cultural differences from one country to the other necessitates alteration of the menu as per the customer preferences of individual countries. Therefore, certain menu in one country can only be found at the McDonalds store of that country. McDonald’s flagship hamburger is not sold in India as majority of the Indian population does not eat beef. The next major product strategy is to make them healthier. Most of the advertisements of McDonalds focus on the message that the menu is healthier than that of the competitors. Studies have shown that McDonalds menu contain less calories compared to the menu of other leading fast food chains. Brand Strategy As mentioned in the beginning, the target market of McDonalds consists of families and children, families, business customers and teenagers. “A lot of McDonald's success can be attributed to its advertising campaign.  It manages to capture the attention of the youth and also appeal to older generations.” (Angelfire, 2011) Therefore, McDonalds had classified their advertising campaigning mainly into two, one focusing on the children and the other focusing on the adults. For attracting the children, McDonalds provide small and cheap toys with the meals which the children look for more than their meals. Children are also very much familiar with the McDonalds icon Ronald. They also introduced the toys of popular cartoon characters so that the children get more attracted. Moreover, the ambience of McDonalds stores are really fun filled. Most McDonald’s restaurant contains a play area or play ground where children can have fun. Though the ambience is fun filled, McDonalds has also been highly successful in attracting the adults to the fun filled environment. Promising quick service and cost effective food is the main ad campaign focused on adults. To attract the adults, they have also started focusing on healthy nature of their products. The fast nature of the products attracts most of the business customers. The color of the restaurant and the chairs used at the store also contribute for the moving in and moving out of the customers. The bright colors used at the restaurant makes it very attractive and fun filled. The chairs are such that it is not comfortable for a longer period of time. This helps the faster moving out. Even the menus are quick grab items so that it takes only little time for the customers to complete their meal. In the light of this, it is important to look at the brand personality of McDonalds. “Brand personality is the way a brand speaks and behaves. It means assigning human personality traits/characteristics to a brand so as to achieve differentiation.” (MSG, 2011) In terms of brand personality, McDonalds stand for cleanliness, short waiting period and family eating centre. This brand image portrayed by McDonalds had helped them to establish their presence in the target market. It is still growing the customer base across the world. A high focus on these brand personalities is a sustainable business model for McDonalds. Conclusion The report has given a deep insight into the branding and product strategies adopted by McDonalds. It can be identified clearly that no other fast food restaurant chain has been as successful as that of McDonalds in terms of delivering the brand promises that it wants to portray. The strategy of making the restaurant appealing to both children as well as the adults is a successful strategy of the company. McDonalds was able to deliver this only because of its closer look at the customers. They have a clear knowledge of what a particular customer group requires. They introduced toys to attract children and economic & quick meals to attract adults. This is how a single brand is made equally appealing to two different customer groups. Works Cited McDonalds UK (2008). Marketing at McDonald’s. Retrieved August 4, 2011. From: http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/static/pdf/aboutus/education/mcd_marketing.pdf Clark, Wendel (2011). Product Development Strategy for McDonald’s. Retrieved August 4, 2011. From: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/product-development-strategy-mcdonalds-12207.html Angelfire (2011). Popularized. Retrieved August 5, 2011. From: http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/Joaquin/Popularized.htm MSG (2011). What is Brand Personality. Retrieved August 5, 2011. From: http://www.managementstudyguide.com/brand-personality.htm McKinsey (2001) The Power of Brand Delivery. Retrieved August 6, 2011. From: http://www.mckinsey.com/practices/retail/knowledge/articles/PowerofBrandDelivery.pdf Klein, Karen E (2008). A Practical Guide to Branding. Retrieved August 6, 2011. From: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jun2008/sb2008069_694225.htm Appendix Read More