Kyle Broderick
October 18, 2014
Marketing 420
McDonalds Twitter Campaign: Hype vs. Reality Case Analysis
1) What are the potential advantages and disadvantages for an organization when using social media?
The use of social media has a very wide variety of advantages and disadvantages for companies. In essence it’s an extremely cheap way to reach consumers, and help them develop a brand perception. Companies can use it to hit a wide audience, and show them about a new product, or deal going on. They can also use social media to develop conversations with their consumers. This can positively shape thoughts and ideas about the brand. Also companies can use analytic services figure out the demographics of who is interested in their
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McDonald’s needs to keep in mind these organizations because they work directly with McDonald’s. What McDonald’s does with their campaigns can directly affect them either positively or negatively. McDonald’s also needs to focus on people and organizations that have a negative stigma of their brand when creating their social media campaigns. Some of these organizations may include People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and any other organization that works towards decreasing obesity. They also should keep in mind different media organizations that write about nutrition and health. All of these organizations will jump at any chance they can get to attack McDonalds. It’s important for McDonald’s to lean on the safe side when it comes to making social media campaigns because it’s such a huge organization, and there are many people out there who dislike it.
3) What would you recommend Wion and his team do to design better future Twitter campaigns for McDonald’s, both specifically and in general?
In general I think it would be smart for Wion and his team start off by looking at the campaigns that its competitors have done to see what has works in the past and what hasn’t. Also I would recommend that they put more effort in to being creative. The #meetthefarmers campaign was moderately successful, but in my eyes it doesn’t
The purpose of the communication was to inform its global markets of the upcoming changes that are about to be rolled out and the major goal they have accomplished with their children’s well being and nutritional information change plan. McDonald’s wants to let the public know that they are a trusted brand that has made huge steps to meet its environmental and social responsibilities for the health and well being of its customers. In addition to the customers base, McDonalds message was being delivered to it’s investors, the public, stockholders, organizational partners, Food and Health Association, & and government agencies that represent health and children's advocacy groups. This communication will briefly explain some of those plans.
McDonald's a fast food company understand the damage in the food they are making but do nothing. Many if not all fast food companies do not feel accountable for their food company causing obesity. They do not care for the people’s health, rather they focus on profit rather on their people. They blame the people of their health when they do not even know the chemicals in their food, making them addicted to every food production
After seeing the commercial, people that have never been to fast food restaurants or those that do not believe in fast foods, would go to the McDonald brand as they got the information that they offer nice food.The commercial meets some ethical standards which are set to regulate ads. The advertisement is within the limits of decency. The people in the place are well groomed as people would while they go to eat. The place is clean to appeal to the people on the health standards, they are catered
To start, McDonalds uses propaganda to manipulate people into consuming their food. This may not seem like an issue, but they do not educate their customers for what they are buying. For instance, one in four McDonald's don’t have their nutrition information in Manhattan. There are 83 McDonald’s in Manhattan, so almost 21 stores in the chain will not provide the nutritional information to their customers.
Due to their suffering brand image, McDonald's has chosen to implement a cause-related marketing strategy by partnering with Fast Food Forward. Cause-related marketing is defined as "an alliance between a brand and a charity or cause in order to benefit each" (Sharp 2013, p. 156). A business must not only fulfil economic, legal and ethical duties, but must exhibit philanthropic attributes. Hence, McDonald's philanthropic contribution to fund the Fast Food Forward campaign exemplifies long-term sustainable marketing as it demonstrates internal ethics, and builds trust with the external stakeholders. Additionally, the Fast Food Forward seal of approval ensures consumers understand the values and principles of the organisation's corporate responsibility whilst simultaneously improving McDonalds' brand
McDonald’s has been one of the main targets of the authorities in the issue of child obesity. Because of their children-focused advertisements and less healthy food products, they have been on the “hot seat” for several years. One of the biggest attacks they have received was from the documentary “Supersize Me”. To counter the bad publicity, McDonald’s used this opportunity to their advantage by launching a new campaign called “Changes” which featured healthier food choices from their menu including salads, free-range eggshells, fruits, and all-white-meat Chicken Selects. Unfortunately, this opportunity to showcase their ability to serve healthier menu choice wasn’t received very well. And to make matters worse, the fast-food chain continued to be on the defensive side but it did not bring them too much good. Their defensive article towards the documentary has retaliated when the film distributor issued and used the identical-looking ads in newspapers to promote the film instead.
These types of commercials tend to be misleading to young viewers to believe that athletes actually eat fast food. Even viewers that are aware McDonald’s is not a healthy choice might be more likely to purchase from the restaurant because of the constant advertising, and incentives such as official Olympic paraphernalia. The effect of the campaign was very successful, as McDonald’s generated a sales profit of 4.8 percent worldwide higher than last February, with a predicted increased of 4 percent.
McDonald's continues to impress me about their dedication to corporate social responsibility. Choosing to include Communications and Engagement in their sustainability priorities was a move into the future of their customers. McDonald's is choosing to listen and speak where their customers are; online and on social media.
The advertisement from McDonalds is a flyer with the picture of a family, smiling while eating their hamburger meal. Bordered with a yellow outline, the picture has an embedded phrase, “Give our best to your family” (McDonalds). At the bottom of the picture, there is an image of a hamburger, coke, and French fries. On the right, there is a description of McDonald’s food and service. The company claims that one can trust “nothing but the best from McDonald’s restaurants” (McDonalds). Additionally, McDonalds indicates that it serves the best beef “even leaner than the kind you serve at home” (McDonalds). The advertisement ends with indicating that the work that the company puts forth is done “all for you” (McDonalds). This stupendous layout and description of McDonald’s
Forbes has ranked McDonalds as the most popular fast food restaurant with “18,710 international restaurants”, this is a commanding lead with KFC coming second with “11,798 international restaurants”. Recently McDonalds have been trying to change their brand by promoting a healthier and more home grown product, also by changing their advertising strategy. They have done this by highlighting their own strong values and trying to connect more with people’s emotions “McDonalds shift in its advertising now places focus on human qualities and emotion” rather than focusing their advertisement only on their product “seven years ago McDonalds was using its adverts to promote and sell its products. Its’s products took centre stage” Not only that there are over “35000” stores worldwide in over “100” countries, this means that everywhere you go you see McDonalds restaurants and McDonalds advertisement, this ingrains their image and brand into your
Advertisement policies are not coherent: Most of the promotion and advertisement techniques target children and people from lower income group. This is not appropriate because the actual target market of McDonald’s is adults and people from higher income groups or these groups also make a major chunk of McDonald’s
There are many external factors that McDonald’s need to take into consideration when developing market strategies to help solve these symptoms and problems. They need to take it into
In spite of McDonald 's known as a leading company in the fast food market, it faces the issues from the perspective of consumers. The consumers ' perception of the brand has the negative impact on the company. Some are related to the company itself but some are based on the characteristics of fast food industry. In general the public perceives McDonald 's brand in a negative manner (Morrison, 2012). This includes the factor of obesity, animal cruelty, social media impact, and manipulative character of selling especially towards children.
Depending on the area of operation, McDonalds has certain specific social responsibilities. The use of non-biodegradable resources by the company when offering their food has often led to attacks from different fronts.
Key stakeholders include customers, suppliers, and the employees of McDonalds. The stakeholder most affected is the public-whether one buys from McDonalds or not. Those who do purchase from McDonalds are directly affected by the unhealthy food provided. There have been various experiences, such as Morgan Spurlock, where fast-food consumption led increase of obesity and type 2 diabetes (Trecroci, 2005). To keep a corporation like McDonalds running, it takes a huge toll on society financially and economically. This impact includes the draining of aquifers, contamination of waterways, strip-mined soils, dangerous working conditions, greenhouse methane gas emitted by the millions of hamburger cows in feedlots, their $2 billion advertising and promotional