Nov 19 2012
In Response to “McDonald’s Doing it Right”
Another blog posting which sparked my interest was Dora Leung‘s post on the success of McDonald’s. Sure, in North America, McDonald’s is considered one of the most simple fast food chains; however, in Asian countries, such as Hong Kong, where I am from, McDonald’s can be seen as a restaurant (there is even a “McCafe” coffeehouse portion of the establishment).
What I gathered from Dora’s post was that McDonald’s maintains a strong brand name by doing exactly the opposite of what one might think – fragmenting its value propositions among various geographical areas. It seems to me that McDonald’s has figured it out – instead of pushing the brand, the idea, onto consumers, why not adjust the brand for the consumers? For example, in Japan, where the niche of cheap, fast food has already been filled by convenience store buns and street side vendors, from a quick look at a SWOT diagram, McDonalds certainly would not have found this industry attractive. However, by creating new menu items catered towards another type of market segment, McDonalds has claimed success in Japan. The same goes for many other countries – Dora gives the example of the ‘Fromage Royale’ in France, adjusted from the ‘Quarter Pounder’ to Europe’s ‘non-empirical system’. This forward thinking and innovation is exactly what others, and myself, likely undermine from day-to-day, dismissing McDonald’s as ‘another fast food chain’. All in all, due to great strategies and tactics, McDonald’s has even become extremely cost efficient, which is structurally difficult for a franchise which aims to target so many different niches internationally.
I guess everyone really is loving it.