McDonald's: A Marketing Strategy Study
McDonald's has become a multi-billion dollar operation by following some very old-fashioned ideas of selling. Essentially these boil down to provide a good product at a low price and make it easy to get and you have a success.
McDonalds Golden Arches are one of the world's most recognized brand symbols. The company has more than 15,000 locations in 79 countries and a new McDonald's restaurant opens every 4.2 hours (Mcfacts web page, 1997).
Sixty percent of McDonald's sales come from a basic hamburger and cheeseburger, and their grown-up modifications called Quarter Pounder, Quarter Pounder With Cheese, Big MAC. Sixty percent of McDonald's profits come from the selling of french fries and sodas, because of their high markup.
The company's corporate headquarters at Oak Brook, IL. has some 800 employees involved in managing various aspects of the selling process. These 800 people are the master strategists, who set product lines, determine prices, create new products, arrange the advertising, and so on. These people have one purpose and one purpose only. To get customers into a McDonalds. That's where the real hard sell comes in. From this point, this analysis will look at how those 800 strategists work in three areas: Relationship Strategy, Product Strategy, and Customer Strategy.
This is a relatively new marketing term, and it means the attitude that the company takes toward its customers. It may sound silly, but a lot of companies really do not like their customers. As Feirman (1993) points out, though, the businesses that do like their customers will come out on top:
. . . they are rebels with a cause, offbeat businessmen and women on track with today's consumers. The key to their success: They understand that customers in the 1990s want to be educated, entertained, and coddled, to do right by the earth and by others (especially their children), and to feel rich, ...