Marketing Strategy Proposal for Opening a Corporate McDonalds
This analysis will deal with the steps necessary to successfully launch a new corporate McDonald's in a foreign country. The act of transplanting a basically American phenomenon onto foreign soil has been a successful strategy for the American restaurant chain, since it reported in its 1999 Annual Report that 62 percent of its revenues now come from foreign (outside United States) operations. This paper will begin with a general overview of the fast food industry that will pay particular attention to McDonald's International operations. That will be followed by a positioning statement that will be effected to facilitate the opening. The final section of the analysis will deal with the Four Ps of marketing.
The fast food sector continues to be the fastest growing sector of the prepared food industry. The market for fast food grew from $183 billion in sales (excluding sales tax and tips) in 1987 to $290 billion in 1998 ("Fast Food Industry," 1999, 12). Over the decade, sales of these foodservice establishments increased an average of 4.8 percent annually, or about 1.7 percent per year when adjusted for inflation. The reason for this continued growth is that consumers do not always have the time to plan, prepare, and eat meals at home. That plus more disposable income due to two-earner families, more women in the workplace, and less leisure time make convenient and value-priced meals prepared outside the home quite a popular alternative.
What is generically called the fast food industry can be said to have gotten its primary boost in the 1950s, when a milk-shake-machine salesman named Ray Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers' burger stand in California with the idea of reproducing it around the country. He did this by creating a simple menu (still the basis of fast food success) and selling the menu at prices that large numbers of consumers could afford.