As most of you have probably heard, Mcdonalds has put on their annual promotion of offering consumer’s a small cup of their premium roast coffee from November 1-6. This marketing strategy shows Mcdonald’s effort in trying to penetrate the coffee market, and take away market share from it’s largest hot drink competitors, Starbucks and Tim Horton’s. Although it may seem absurd that Mcdonald’s  would think they would have a chance competing in the coffee market , there are some great benefits due to Mcdonald’s actions. For one,  a buzz around Mcdonald’s and their coffee is created as it grabs the attention and interest from new or existing consumers.This marketing tactic also attracts a mass load of new consumers to try their product who normally wouldn’t think to buy coffee at Mcdonald’s due to consumer’s predetermined perceptions of the company. And lastly, the buzz and excitement created from the promotion, trickles directly down to the customers into consumer-generated media. Consumer’s ( Like myself) become excited over the promotion and in turn become promoters for Mcdonald’s  through word of mouth promotion. The second I heard about the free coffee week at mcdonalds the first thing I did was to update my Facbeook status to inform all of my friends about the deal in hopes that they too would take advantage of it. This act definitely sparked a buzz on Facebook, as my status received 15 likes (two of them coming from students in my Com 296 class Samantha Dodson and Sean Goodall) and 10 comments on my status. It has been proven that word of mouth marketing is one of the most effective marketing tactics because the value of the product comes off as more genuine and as a more trust worthy source, and because of this I think the millions Mcdonald’s spent on advertising the promotion and giving away unlimited free coffees was well worth it for the company  in the end.