Integrated Marketing Communications Plan for McDonalds - Case Study Example

The paper "Integrated Marketing Communications Plan for McDonald's" is a good example of a marketing case study. The McDonald franchise is the world’s largest fast-food restaurants which run the best food outlets not only in Australia but also in other parts of the world. The franchise runs up to 30,000 joints in 118 countries, two hundred of them being in Australia. Just in one country, the United Kingdom, the McDonald’s franchise has around 13000 outlets, 30% of which are privately run and the remainder directly owned by the company (Facella and Genn, 2008 pp 45).

The origins of McDonald's can be traced back to the early 1940s and 1950s (Schlosser, 2001). Back then, at 52 years, Ray Kroc met the McDonald’s brothers; Mac and Dick McDonald during a sales visit in 1954. Roy Kroc was a multimixer salesman.

The McDonald siblings ran a restaurant. The two-run the food outlet in San Bernardino, California which they started way back in 1940, like a drive-in bar-b-que food outlet and an automobile service station. While making deliveries to the two siblings; Mac and Dick McDonald in 1954, Ray Kroc was amazed by the fact that the brother's food joint seemed to be doing extremely well despite the fact that it was small. He also noted that the brothers had a very brief menu that specialized on handful delicacies, 9 items to be exact. This he realized ensured their undivided concentration on quality when preparing the food. Bang! It hit him, Mac and Dick McDonald’s success was underpinned by specialization (Kroc and Anderson, 1987 pp23).

As Mr Kroc strutted into his early old age, he mulled about the feasibility of replicating Mac and Dick McDonald’s operation not only right across the country in the United States but also exporting it abroad. Thus was born the idea of expanding the company to numerous other countries abroad, apart from concentrating in the United States alone. He approached the McDonalds’ and pitched the vision to them, only to learn that they too had ambitions of finding a countrywide franchising firm, that would propel them onto the national stage (Malcolm McDonald and Dunbar, 2005 pp52). This is when Ray Kroc, at 52 years realized that his career as a multimixer salesman had come to a screeching halt. He decided from then on, his future was in hamburgers. McDonalds Inc. was born, just a year later, with the first outlet opened in Des Plaines, in the state of Illinois on the 15th of April in the year 1955. This was the start of the opening of several other restaurants across the country and the whole world. A decade later, no less than 700 outlets were already in operation in the United States (Schlosser, 2001 pp 69).

McDonald's utilizes several products differentiated strategies so as to achieve a competitive advantage in the market. One such strategy is setting audaciously high parameters of quality, service, cleanliness and value that have to be met every single day, month or year. This goal, however, is rarely met because of the differences in the perception of outsiders about this organization (Schlosser, 2001 pp71). Through their successful branding campaigns, McDonald’s Ltd targets driving down the cost of their culinary products while shoring up the customers' numbers and meeting their corporate goals and objectives (Sugars 2005, pp23).