Evaluate how effective McDonalds are when marketing their products.
by
mattcole22 (student)
Matt Cole Unit 3 D1
For companies such as McDonalds marketing is very important they use a variety of techniques and in this report I am going to evaluate how effect McDonalds uses these techniques when marketing their products. I will first off explain the technique and then evaluate using logical opinions, interpreting the data and discussing weather or not it is reliable and valid.
The first technique I am going to discuss is objectives. These objectives are decided by the marketing team or by the managers and are also known as SMART objectives for example an objective that I have found on the McDonalds website is to open 30 new drive thru restaurants per year from 2011 in order to make McDonalds even more convenient. This is a SMART objective because it is specific being 30 measurable they can record if it’s been achieved. Achievable because McDonalds have the resources to do it, realistic due to the amount of resources they have and time-bound being 2011. Objectives like this can be very useful for business to use as they make the target seem more reasonable and the approach can be adapted and changed in order to meet the objective. This technique could be used in all aspects of the business and can be decided at any time helping the business to keep on track and in turn keep profits as high as possible. My opinion on this is that having an objective that can be tracked and is to a time bound schedule would be very useful. The reliability would be guaranteed if the target was met and it would make the setting of the objective highly valid.
The second technique that McDonalds would use is something known as the Ansoff matrix. This is a table that is split into four sections which are market penetration this is when the business aims to achieve growth with already existing products. The next is market development this is when a business try’s to grow by targeting existing products to new markets. The next is product development this is when a business develops new products to aim at is existing market. The last is diversification this is when a business grows by diversifying into a new market with a new product. The Ansoff matrix is used because it is important in making sure businesses are always doing their best and focused on expanding for example if they have an already established market that is buying existing products and they begin to stop bringing in new products their customers may begin to loose interest in the company. To stop this from happening McDonalds have launched new products such as the taste the American range and the festive menu. That is only available for a limited time only meaning that they will excite existing which is of key importance and perhaps even bring in new customers. I think that the reliability of using the Ansoff matrix is very high as seen with McDonalds for example they were not very diverse and in past years didn’t really offer a menu to vegetarians or diabetics however over the last few years they have expanded their product range in order to facilitate the needs of potential customers with such products as fruit bags and carrot sticks as well as products such as diet coke. However I think that McDonalds have not used diversification to its full potential. I think that they have missed opportunities in expanding their business especially considering how iconic the brand is. They could have for example gone into airlines or hotels expanding into new markets with a fresh new product whilst still being able to offer their previous products.
