Article Reference: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/mcdonald-s-sales-slide-coke-flat-as-consumer-tastes-shift-1.2807475
Picture Reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s

Refer to the article I read, it is said that the sales of McDonald’s dipped 3.3 percent, largely because of the expired meat scandal in China and the U.S. customers’ taste shift.
Business ethics are notably important for any company if they want to succeed. Therefore, the scandal exposed last month hurt McDonald’s really hard; a previous reputation for safe and quality food has been blemished. Although they apologized and changed the supply chain of beef and chicken in China, it takes a long time to get Chinese customers’ trust back because the negative side of word-of-mouth marketing is shown; the scandal drove customers to other brands. In addition, since more people are being health-conscious, the sales of Coca-Cola have shown one percent drop worldwide, especially in U.S.
In order to push up the sales of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, generally speaking, the only way is to make the product healthier. In the short run, the demand of McDonald’s was inelastic past decades; however, more substitutes came out nowadays and people had realized that fast food was not healthy. Thus, in order to adapt to the changes of people’s tastes, McDonald’s had better to produce late-model food with low calories and fat (because American worried about obesity! Big health problem in North America) and be patient to win the fame back. As for Coca-Cola, they need to find a way to produce Cokes with less sugar while the sweetness keeps as the same as possible. It is hard to achieve but if they are not able to overcome the combination of health and taste, they cannot earn more.
The key to keeping pace with or even surpass other competitors is to meet customers’ needs, and at present, we need a healthy diet and lifestyle.