Marketing Mix Of Mcdonalds

Submitted By RebeccaChavez
Words: 4435
Pages: 18

Introduction McDonald’s currently stands as a US and global market leader in the fast food industry.
According to Statista.com, the US fast food market generated approximately $191 billion in
2013. Although the traditional fast food industry is at a mature state in its life cycle with little to no growth in sales, “casual” fast food restaurants, such as Chipotle and Panera, have grown exponentially through the acquisition of millennials. Millennials can be defined as the broad market segment made up of approximately 80 million Americans born between 1980 and
2000, thus, ranging in age from 15 to 35 years of age. Rapid technology expansion, economic recessions, and a cultural shift towards a healthier lifestyle have had a huge impact on the segmentation of the fast food market, leaving ‘quick service’ restaurants such as McDonalds continuously losing market share and searching for a solution. The focus of the following marketing plan addresses McDonald’s inefficiency at reaching the millennial population in the US market. The plan will disclose McDonald’s target markets and segmentation strategy, key product attributes and benefits, positioning of products, and finally, attempt to establish a short­term marketing program that will offer a variety of marketing mix objectives aimed at satisfying the target market’s wants and needs. Segmentation Demographic Using the age demographic variable, McDonald’s can segment the broader millennial generation into two main segments: the high school and college student population aging roughly from 15 to 24 years of age, and young working adults and parents aging from 25 to
35.

Stemming from the age segment, family life cycle is an important variable segmentation to also consider in order to fully understands the needs of each segment. For instance, the younger millennial age group is highly homogenous in terms of where they fall under in the family life cycle. For instance, the younger millennial group is predominantly made up of single individuals with no children. These millennials either attend school, have joined the workforce, or do both at the same time . These individuals tend to have strong social needs, centered around friendship, relationships, and social acceptance. The group segment is more resilient to influences from advertising and tends to get most of its consumer behavior from friends, word of mouth, TV personalities, and social media. This group also tends to follow trends versus information about the product, and makes the majority of its purchases based on psychological factors influenced by peers. Key motivating factors for this group are enhancing self­image, and achieving prestige from social circles. In contrast, the older half of the millennial age segment tends to be made up of young adults, presumably in the workforce. The latter segment of millennials will mostly be married,

divorced, or single with or without children; or a combination thereof. Consumer behavior will most likely have more functional purchases than psychological ones. For instance, a young parent’s disposable income will most likely buy diapers, baby clothes, mortgage payments, etc.; thus, leaving a smaller portion of discretionary income to spend on psychological purchases like a new spring dress or new shoes. This group tends to receive its information sources from friends, online blogs, magazine, publications, documentaries, and political figures. Therefore, the group’s key motivating factors that influence consumer behavior will revolve around information, and will vary drastically depending on the current stage in family life cycle. Lastly, income is arguably the most applicable segmentation variable for McDonald’s customer base. From McDonald’s inception, its core marketing strategy has revolved around targeting the value­oriented customer, which it has successfully penetrated. However,
McDonald’s most recent