McDonald's fighting to be 'relevant' to customers

[unhappycamper]

http://www.adn.com/2014/01/23/3287141/mcdonalds-profit-up-despite-fewer.html

McDonald's fighting to be 'relevant' to customers
By CANDICE CHOI
AP Food Industry Writer
January 23, 2014 Updated 7 hours ago

NEW YORK — McDonald's is losing customers, as the world's biggest hamburger chain struggles to attract diners with its higher-priced sandwiches and new offerings like Mighty Wings.

"We've lost some of our customer relevance," CEO Don Thompson conceded Thursday on a call with analysts.

The Oak Brook, Ill.-based company reported disappointing sales for its fourth quarter, as fewer customers visited its established restaurants. Guest counts at those locations fell nearly 2 percent globally and 1.6 percent in the U.S. in 2013, according to a regulatory filing. And McDonald's expects some challenges to persist this year.

To win back traffic, Thompson said the chain will focus on speedier service, better value offerings and raising "awareness around McDonald's as a kitchen and a restaurant" that prepares high-quality food. It's expanding prep tables and plans to beef up staff during peak hours for better execution. It is also bringing in a new U.S. marketing chief, Deborah Wahl, formerly with homebuilder PulteGroup and automakers Chrysler and Ford.



unhappycamper comment: Good luck with that 'restaurant' meme.

[CincyDem]

1. The issue is that they've lost control of their franchises.

For years, the Golden Arches were pretty much run by dictate from Oakbrook, Il. There was Hamburger U and a very centralized marketing message (that included recommended pricing structures). That was a time when many, if not most, of the outlets were controlled by franchisees with 1, 2, maybe (but rarely) 3 outlets.

Today, the powerbase as dramatically shifted to the franchisee and "recommendations" from Oakbrook are viewed as just that - suggestions of how to approach things. Sure, there's still a lot of product control and visual/design control exerted through the franchises agreement but marketing and message...yeah right.

Every time they have an issue like this, they bring in a new CMO. Then they do strategy for 6 months. A lot of these folks are really smart and they come up with coherent messages that make sense to consumers and have potential. Then those ideas are presented to a huge roomful of franchisees who really want to know how the corporate group is going to help them pay employees with debit cards and get away with it, or make the scoop for the french fries just a little smaller so they make more on each serving.

These franchisees are one small step above throwing food at the presenter in these marketing meetings. It is chaos. They're in "marketing-schmarketing" mode and just want to find a few more pennies a day on the floor.

And god forbid that a marketing person suggest that maybe we could improve our reputation but lifting ourselves above the minimum-wage fray and pay a living wage. Imagine how powerful it would be for a chain the size of McD to say:

"We used to train highschool kids to be in the workforce and we paid them minimum wage. Today, whole families are subsisting on our wages and that's not good enough for our employees, our communities or for us."

You wouldn't be able to get a space in a McD parking lot. That should be their marketing message and rather than spending 40 million or more on some jacked up "campaign" that looks like it was designed by a committee of dip-shits, they should dump that 40 (and 40 more, amd maybe 40 more after that) into a disruptive reputation make-over. One that causes the entire fast food industry to say "how do we keep up with that?"

But you think that could happen...yeah, right.

Chris Rock said something about minimum wage being what you're paid when your boss can't legally pay you less. Eating at McD is getting to the point of "it's where you go when you can't afford to go anywhere else".

That's no way to build a brand.

***rant over***

[riqster]

2. The only way a business can ever be relevant:

Provide a product that customers choose to purchase.

The end.

Seriously, all of the other gobbledygook is either bullshit, or a means to the abovementioned end. If you sell it and people buy it, you are relevant. If not, you're not.