McDonald’s, the restaurant giant that earned $23.22 billion in revenue in 2021 as the world’s largest fast food chain. Their rise from San Bernardino, California to the global behemoth they are now has been meteoric and they wouldn’t have reached the dizzying heights they have without some canny promotion.

For McDonald’s there are so many great methods of promotion that I’m going to use a few and then not do the other sections of promotion (for now).

Advertising

A cornerstone of McDonald’s promotion is the way they use advertising: their Christmas adverts always focus on the social positivity associated with the festive season and therefore the brand while also trying to make unhealthy fast food feel as wholesome as possible.

Their recent ‘Change a little, change a lot’ campaign showed the positive aspects of McDonald’s and how they were a progressive company which may or may not have worked (I still see them in the same way).

Typically, I tend to only focus on TV advertising in this section but there’s a brilliant example of how McDonald’s use billboards that I had to include.

The genius of this is beyond words, firstly the level of brand recognition needed for this to work as only a portion of the logo was used but I bet you could tell exactly which business did this. Finally, the parts of the logo also match the directions. I don’t know how I didn’t see this the first time but it’s so clever.

Sales Promotion

McDonald’s don’t tend to do discounts on their products so the less intelligent of you may say they don’t do sales promotion however that would be rather inaccurate.

Firstly, they run the highly successful McDonald’s Monopoly competition every year where customers earn stickers on their products that may lead to rewards. However, despite its popularity it is only said to increase McDonald’s sales by 3.33%.

Another sales promotion technique they use is their new loyalty scheme in the MyMcDonald’s app. Customers who spend often can earn free products which to me (haven’t tried it) is a reasonably good idea that works well.

Public Relations

In recent years, McDonald’s have worked incredibly hard to reduce their negative image after a string of allegations about their ethics and the health implications of consuming their products.

To try and combat this negative image, McDonald’s have focused heavily on promoting their involvement with the Ronald McDonald House Charity to try and associate their brand with something ethical and positive.

To try and show how health conscious they are becoming and that they are more responsible, McDonald’s have sponsored the FA in England and run their ‘Fun Football’ programme which offers free sports lessons to children – how generous!

Do comment your thoughts below.