McDonalds Marketing Strategies

Since the 1960’s McDonalds have lead the industry when it comes to customer driven marketing, however due to a slump in sales figures between 1995 and 2005 the fast food giant was forced to overhaul its marketing strategies in order to capture value from its customers and revive its brand loyalty.

The main target segments for McDonalds are children, teenagers, and families with young children and have more recently been expended to include business people and healthy eaters.

Recent studies have shown that kids play a significant role in a family when it comes to making decisions on fast moving consumer goods, i.e. takeaway food. Thus traditionally kids have been the main focus of McDonalds marketing strategies over the years. So to attract children McDonalds introduced the Happy Meal which comes with a small toy, and to make the Happy Meal more desirable to children McDonalds frequently enters into co-branding agreements with companies such as Disney, Hot wheels or Barbie to ensure the toy keeps up with the tastes and interests of children. Also at most outlets McDonalds provide a playground where children can play on equipment. This is aimed at making McDonald’s a fun place to eat for children. This also helps McDonald’s to attract the families wanting to spend some quality time while their children have fun at the outlet. Also to attract families McDonalds has released a “Dinner Box”, which allows the family to purchase a box which contains several meals at a discounted price making it more affordable to feed the whole family at McDonalds. To target the teenagers, McDonald’s has priced several products aggressively; keeping in mind that youth’s income is generally limited. Also most McDonald’s restaurants have Wi-Fi to attract students and also any business people that might want to do work while dining or grabbing a coffee. Also to attract the business people McDonalds has placed significant emphasis on their coffee being “café