Stoke

McDonald's Missing the Mark

by Dave Miller

from Brandweek

 

Just when I thought I would never again be surprised to find a monolithic brand lose touch with the promise to its customers – I see yet another McDonalds campaign.

I should preface my comments by saying that I am a McDonald’s loyalist. As a child of the 70’s I would sit with my friends, and our then-new “digital” watches, timing the fastest of our “two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce...” cadences.

To us, the magic of McDonalds was that no matter where you traveled, it was delightfully and comfortingly the same. Their burgers were good, but we didn’t really consider them “burgers.” They were McDonald’s – and we liked them.

That is why the long trajectory of McDonalds’ advertising and promotional campaigns has me puzzled. Most recently, the folks at McD’s Corporate have treated us to fabulous new menu items (Eggs Benedict!) and challenged us to imagine the delight and surprise that awaits us under the Golden Arches (Tacos!). McDonalds will be a voyage of new discovery and unfound wonders in taste!

Huh? We’re talkin’ McDonald’s, right?

Attention Oak Brook HQ: We go to your restaurants because, quite specifically, we don’t want a surprise. We want McDonald’s. We want the McDonald’s of “Food, Folks and Fun”, not McTacos, Arch Deluxe and Bratwursts. In limited arenas of their lives, your customers embrace “sameness” as an antidote to their increasingly confounding world. We love McDonalds, but for Kroc’s sake – stick to doing “McDonald’s!”

I sense that McDonalds’ equity will continue to slide down faster than a saucy-McRib with the continued organizational obsession on what fajita salad the other guy is offering. The very fact that McDonalds challenges us to think about food selections, the McEggs Benedict and BBQ that McDonalds can’t possibly “own” in our minds, invites comparison to other franchise alternatives to which – by most measures – McDonald’s would lose in a taste test.

Fact is, we go to McDonald’s because of its ubiquity. We started going there as kids, and now we take our kids there. McDonalds is not cognitive, it is reflexive. We treasure not having to think about it. It just “is.” As the parent of seasoned Playland veterans, I know Micky-D’s will prevail – provided the stores stay clean and the food remains steady. No new clever combination of meat and cheese products can transcend our intolerance for a grimy table.

It is possible that McDonald’s marketing is based on an assumption of taste-superiority. Perhaps lying in that fizzy corporate logic, “If we are the #1 burger restaurant, then we must have the best burgers.” And then, quite logically, they perceive that those quality associations can be transferred to new menu items.

Wrong.

To whoever cooked-up this mess: If you would really “Love to See You Smile” – please don’t try to compete on food. We don’t come to the Golden Arches on the merits of taste tantalization and culinary delight. We prize your brand on friendliness, cleanliness, consistency and convenience. They are value propositions that you’ve abdicated in recent years and – luckily – competitors have neglected to capture.

Exactly how many failed menu concepts does it take before all of those development dollars are instead plowed into the value proposition? While there are compelling reasons to assess menu price points, the constant re-sizing and re-bundling of products in a dizzying array of Value Meals has virtually eliminated the subtle value of the enterprise – the ease and uniformity of the experience. Can’t more of the effort and resources spent modeling food and paper cost/margins in the 6-pc. McNugget Meal be re-directed to a sustainable customer benefit? Like, foot-operated trash-bin doors, table-side beverage re-fill, slightly larger ketchup packages? Endless opportunity and reward awaits the executive whose focus is on all that McDonald’s can do, instead of simply trumping what BK is serving across the street.

Transport me to a McDonald’s that doesn’t mask its employees with a cacophony of Disney promotions. Raise the price of each of our combo meals by 20 cents and fund a solution to the greasy skating rink by the fry bin. Take the 30-foot inflatable McFlurry off the roof and pay performance bonuses!

Frankly, “We’d Love to See Them Smile.”

Campaign creative that centers on recurring surprise can be a triumph of indiscretion and poor timing. Not only does it fail to deliver on the brand’s promise, and increasingly dilute strong brand associations, it also follows closely on the hoofs of news to vegetarians that the French fries were “naturally flavored” with animal parts. A surprise indeed.

Watching McDonald’s bring attitude and sass to their brand is like watching your mom hit the dating scene – weird and awkward, if not somewhat surreal.

The antecedent of the McDonalds brand was exquisite operational performance, not their ad agencies and test kitchens. As long as management of Ronald’s brand is articulated as “creative management,” this clowning will continue to dilute the loyalty of those who remember the brand, and fail to satisfy those who can’t differentiate it.

This is an organization that once gave a complimentary meal for neglecting to bag a “to-go” item as lowly as a straw or napkin. Now, they themselves are grasping for straws in vain attempts to re-awaken the brand through their nifty menu concepts and hollow campaign creative, while neglecting the customer-facing performance concepts that have underpinned their success to date.

McDonald’s is attempting to resolve the fickleness of a customer base through menu explorations, undeniably tempting in an increasingly saturated and fractionalized market. However, the strength of their brand is inversely proportional to its scope. Continued adventures at the margins of the menu will do little to preserve (let alone build) market share for the folks who were once well-regarded for stewarding brand equity.

That’s all for now…Please pull forward to the window…