Competitor of McDonald in the fast food industry

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015 Last Modified: 01 May 2017

We are going to take Burger King into the discussion as it is the competitor of McDonald in the fast food industry. Burger King is another successful and leading fast food industry in the world which is the biggest threat to McDonald.

From our research, we found that McDonald's have their strength and weaknesses. Since McDonald's is the most well know fast food chain in the world, brand recognition is their biggest strength. Their marketing campaign continues to focus on brand recognition by promoting their name. McDonald's phenomenal growth is mainly attributed to the creation of its strong brand identity. McDonald's products such as chicken nuggets and Big Mac are recognized all over the world; its trademark, "the Golden Arches", and its brand name have become amongst the most instantly recognized symbol in the world. Ronald McDonald who is the figure of McDonald is famous character among the children. The reason why most of the families patronize to McDonald is because influenced by their children. However Burger King's figure is not famous like Ronald McDonald. Moreover, Burger King and McDonald regard burger as their main product, but the sale volume of McDonald is higher than Burger King because McDonald's brand identity is famous than Burger King.

McDonald's had heavy mass media advertising. They have always focused promotion around good food, friendly folks, and fun. They have also spent a considerable amount of money on promotional programs such as Monopoly, Happy Meals, and the Big Mac. In addition to these promotions, McDonald's signed a ten-year contract with Disney combining promotions for food items with Disney movies. They also continue the successful Beanie Baby promotion that is credited as the company's most successful promotion ever. McDonald's has also been successful at placing restaurants in every available position. While Burger King less invests in advertisement such as mass media and printed advertising. Besides, Burger King did not put enough effort in provide customer loyalty program compare with McDonald such as McDonald have refill carbohydrates drinks services for customers but Burger King is none.

As we know that McDonald is emphasize the McValue of their product. McDonald's patrons can enjoy close to 30% savings for selected products from its McValue Meal line-up between noon and 3pm. McValue Lunch is designed to help consumers save and stretch their money in the face of economically challenging times. This method is implemented very successful, it attract consumer's attention and retain the existing and potential customers. Despite this method is benefits to McDonald and their customer, but it still have limitations. In order to maintain the profit from selling McValue foods, McDonald reduces the using of the material and stuff of their food likes the size of beef and meat become smaller. Although Burger King's foods are more expensive if compare with Burger King's, but the Burger King's foods are full amount. It can be proving by the ingredient and size of their burgers. The size of Burger King's burgers are bigger then McDonald because Burger King using sufficient material and stuff in their producing procedure.

Recommendation

Recognize organization weaknesses are important to improve organization business skills. The problem faced by McDonald is that their food has negative image due to their unhealthy foods. For instance, variety of McDonald's products such as cheeseburger, Chicken McNuggets, French fries and soft drink are contain high calories, fat, carbohydrates and sodium. Moreover, the movie "Super Size Me" did not do well for McDonald's public image. The character of this movie takes his dinner at McDonald's restaurant three times per day and gain almost 10 pounds in five days. We recommend McDonalds should change their food's menu and showing a more healthy side of McDonalds likes salad and less sugar drinks. If successfully adopt this method, this will enable McDonald to retrieve their market image.

There are a lot of video clips that ruin McDonald's image posted on the internet likes YouTube and Facebook which are always visited by younger. Those video commend about the McDonald's food contain a lot of preservative to maintain the freshness. For instance, some of the McDonald's food can continue its freshness after one year. These video caused current and potential customers lose their confidence on McDonald. In other words, consumers may not consume McDonald again after received these message especially the educated people. Although these videos are informally, but these video are posted on Facebook and Youtube that is the most famous website by internet users. It make the negative information spread widely. So, we suggest McDonald to convene a press conference to explain the ingredients of their product are met the standards of Health Department to maintain their reputation. Besides, we also suggest McDonald provide their customers the relevant data that they need with reference to the nutritional substances of their products. This is to attend to the arguments of healthy charged against the products of the company

McDonald provides McValue Lunch deals to help consumers for saving their money. Although the McValue Lunch are cheaper in price and affordable for every consumers, but the volume of McValue Lunch unable let McDonald's patrons to feel satiate. The existing customers felt not satisfied about the volume of McValue Lunch. We recommends McDonald to maintain the using of material and stuff in their producing procedure. Even though maintaining the using of material and stuff in McValue strategy will cause the profitability of products become low, but it will retain the existing customers and reputation of McDonald.

The social responsibilities of McDonald's on the state are influential to the operations of the company. These entail accusations of environmental damage. The reasons why they are charged with claims is the employ of non-biodegradable substances for their drinks glasses and Styrofoam coffers for the meals. Non-Biodegradable waste will not break down and unable become part of the earth and soil. Under this circumstance, we recommend McDonald implement the idea of reduce, reuse and recycle within their organization. With this idea, McDonald can reduce the using of harmful ingredients for their drinks glasses. For instant, McDonald can use Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) product to replace the currently glasses. Poly Lactic Acid is a plastic made from corn and renewable resource. It is fully biodegradable and compostable. Beside, PLA based product can be recycled or composted within 90 days.