1. I’m Lovin’ It
An Analysis of McDonald’s Fast Food Chains in
France and a Marketing Communications Plan to
Help the Brand Improve its Equity
Raihana AKHMURZINA
Johan AUDAS
Therese LARROZA
Anna RELLAMA
Yagmur KARA
Edgar PARGA
International Marketing Communications
Tim Lyons
28 October 2011

2. Table of Contents
I’m Lovin’ It ................................................................................................................ 1
Situational Analysis ................................................................................................ 1
Overview ..................................................................................................................................... 1
External Issues ....................................................................................................... 1
Competition ................................................................................................................................. 1
Culture ......................................................................................................................................... 1
Negative American Perceptions ................................................................................................... 2
Internal Issues ........................................................................................................ 2
International Marketing Communications.................................................................. 4
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4
Marketing Objectives ............................................................................................ 4
Target Market ........................................................................................................ 5
Communication Objectives .................................................................................... 7
Marketing Communication Elements ..................................................................... 8
Direct Marketing .......................................................................................................................... 8
Advertisements ............................................................................................................................ 8
Sales Promotion............................................................................................................................ 8
Creative Strategy ...................................................................................................... 9
Positioning Statement ............................................................................................. 9
Media Strategy ....................................................................................................... 9
The Internet Campaign ................................................................................................................ 9
The Television Campaign .......................................................................................................... 10
Radio .......................................................................................................................................... 11
Print ........................................................................................................................................... 11
Media Schedule .................................................................................................... 12
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3. I’m Lovin’ It
Situational Analysis
Overview
The first McDonald’s in France was built in 1979 and is located in Strasbourg's
Les Hall shopping center. The French did at one time have a love-hate relationship
with McDonald’s as some of them considered McDonald’s as the symbol of the
Americanization of France and also see it as France’s losing of uniqueness in terms of
its cuisine. However, over the past few years, McDonald’s has grown on the French
just like in so many other countries. The fast food chain has successfully landed in
France, and yet, with that said success, McDonald’s should still be able to generate a
good, effective and sustainable marketing communications plan to stay on top of
their game in the land of cheese and wine.
External Issues
Competition
Some of the major players in the French fast food market include McDonald's,
Quick Restaurants, Elior and Yum Brands. With the French fast food industry
witnessing deceleration in the last couple of years primarily due to the economic
recession prevailing worldwide, the industry is likely to recover from 2012.
McDonald’s closest competitor, Quick Service Restaurants, are very popular in
France and account for almost 70 percent of the fast food industry in the country
(Business Wire, 2011).
Culture
McDonald’s vision to be the world’s best quick service restaurant experience
is supported by the company’s recognition of the importance of adjusting its
operational strategies to the meet the specific dynamics and needs of the countries
in which it operates. This has played a major role in the company’s global success.
In many countries, the company has modified its products to cater to local tastes.
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4. The management of McDonald’s France has also been clever in adapting food
and decorations to local tastes as well as publicly advertising how many French
cows, chickens, lettuce and tomatoes it uses annually in local newspapers. The
physical restaurant set up may also be altered to make the McDonald’s concept
more appealing to European nations who were not accustomed to the fast food
restaurant layout when McDonald’s first entered the market (Boswell, 2005).
McDonald’s advertisements also vary from the global brand’s other ads
around the world. In 2010, it ran a French TV commercial featuring a gay son eating
at McDonald’s with his father not knowing about his son’s sexual orientation. The
campaign worked in France but it spurred a lot of criticisms all over the world
including USA. However, in a recent interview with The Chicago Tribune,
McDonald's chief of operations Don Thompson said the controversy over the French
ad in the United States was an example of how "markets, cultures are very different
around the world." The ad, he said, would not be airing in the United States.
(Gomstyn, 2010)
Negative American Perceptions
The company is often seen as a symbol of American domination of foreign
economic resources even though its foreign franchises are locally owned and use
locally produced foods. Other criticisms include allegations of exploitation of entry-
level workers, ecological damage, selling unhealthy food, production of packaging
waste, exploitative advertising, etc. (Boswell, 2005)
However, amidst the challenges and criticisms, McDonald’s continues its
stride as the global industry leader. France is the only country in Europe in which
McDonald’s has consistently done well since the first outlet opened in 1979. Among
the reasons that McDonald’s has done so well in France is the company’s upgrading
and transparency strategies. Its management team has spruced up drab restaurants,
improved its menus and introduced a host of innovative concepts.
Internal Issues
Internal issues have an impact on marketing communications of McDonald’s
as well. These consist of current marketing communication strategies, current
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5. positioning, and current marketing communications. In this section, these issues will
be analyzed.
McDonald’s France has different market segments. These include parents with
children, children and teenagers. These segments all have different reasons to come
McDonald’s. Since these different segments exist for the company, there are
different strategies to communicate with them. The more McDonald’s knows about
its customers, the better it can serve them.
To look at the communication strategies and positioning of the brand
internally, we are going to look at one of the components in the marketing mix:
promotion. Promotion covers all types of marketing communications. The key
objective of advertising and promoting is to make people aware of a brand. Methods
are used to create the recognizable face of an organization. McDonald’s global logo
is the Golden Arches but since McDonald’s is an international brand, we are going to
specifically look at its promotion and advertising strategies in France.
Currently, McDonald’s uses all media channels for their marketing in France
like billboards, TV ads, e-mailing, sponsorships, sales promotions etc. including
direct marketing channels. Nevertheless, we believe that it is the TV ads that are on
the heart of company’s promotion strategy.
Even though the aim of McDonald’s is to create a global image, it localizes its
marketing communication campaigns because of high cultural diversity. It needs to
analyze its customer segments’ attitudes towards the product, usage patterns and
religious beliefs in that environment. Sandler and Shai described this strategy as
“branding globally, but advertising locally.”
McDonalds has been using the motto of “I’m lovin it” but in selected countries
this has changed and even sometimes it has turned out to be trouble. To illustrate,
the first and foremost TV ad in France of McDonald’s, in which a gay teenager
features, has caused controversy in France whose slogan is “come as you are.”
McDonald’s adopts its marketing campaigns with the culture. Because French
culture is becoming more tolerant and homogenous, accepting gay people or
outsiders in the society is an essential thing to the target market that’s why they used
gay teenagers in their TV ads. It is a great illustration of a restaurant that adopted to
match up with the French culture and now it is closely seen as a French restaurant.
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6. One of the responses is: “They could never show that in the United States or
the Christian right would boycott the restaurant forever.” However, France is the
McDonald’s second largest market in the World.
France’s example for McDonald’s is a successful integration of culture and
marketing communications. Although it is an American product, it has been, over the
years, “frenchified” as the green-colored McDo where the French can go to as they
are.
International Marketing Communications
Introduction
McDonald’s, being one of the best-known brands worldwide, aims to
continually build its equity by developing consumer-based marketing strategies.
This can be seen in the company’s marketing communication methods, specifically
in the advertising and promotional elements that they use to create the colors,
designs and images that give McDonald’s its recognizable image which, of course, is
headlined by its logo.
McDonald’s, being in such a crowded market, faces competition from other
businesses ranging from fancy restaurants to other fast food chains. To stand out,
therefore, is a challenge that requires a different level of creativity and innovation.
Besides this, the company has economic, legal and technological changes, social
factors, the retail environment and many other elements to consider.
Marketing Objectives
McDonald’s objectives involve identifying the customer’s needs and
responding to them in a way that’s better than its competitors. To go further into
detail, this paper focuses on 3 marketing objectives:
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7. n To establish in the minds of its customers that McDonald’s is a healthy and
environment-friendly brand.
McDonald’s in France has changed its logo from red-yellow to green-yellow
as a first step towards responding to the continuously increasing health trends all
over the world.
n To increase customer satisfaction by increasing employee productivity by at least
20%.
Trainings and skills are to be provided to the employees, for it is believed that
although it is the product that gets the customer to try, it is the relationships built that
keeps the customer loyal.
n To increase customer satisfaction by constantly improving and updating the
operating systems and marketing databases.
Another objective is to improve the restaurant system by having 24 hours 7
days stores and delivery service all days and nights long. This will be something
new for French customers, as McDonald’s already has it in Hong Kong and some
other countries, French customers will enjoy and benefit it at anytime they want,
which will also increase the profits.
Target Market
One of the most important tasks for McDonald’s marketing team is to know the
audience. People interpret things differently. A careful understanding, therefore, of
whom they need to address would cost the company less and would increase the
effectiveness of McDonald’s marketing efforts.
In McDonald’s case, audiences could be segmented in terms of age, current
dietary practices, existing nutritional attitudes and eating behaviors.
As reported, the American Dietetic Association segments adults into three
groups based on public opinion polls of people’s nutritional beliefs and behaviors.
The first group, the “I’m already doing” it segment, consists of individuals who are
knowledgeable about nutrition and are already eating healthy and are exercising.
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8. This segment, which accounts for approximately 38% of adults, is presumably eager
for the latest nutrition information and does not need strong persuasive tactics.
The second group, the “I know I should but…” segment constitutes about 30%
of adults. These people are knowledgeable about nutrition and believe that healthy
eating is important, but they do not necessarily practice health-promoting
behaviors. Health messages for this group need to overcome behavioral rather than
attitudinal resistance.
The final group, the “don’t bother me” segment, is the toughest to change.
About 32% of adults do not care, are in denial, or have other concerns that seem
more crucial. They are not likely to pay much attention to nutrition information in the
news or in health campaigns. (The American Dietetic Association,
http://www.eatright.org)
Considering the segmentation made by the American Dietetic Association
and other elements such as McDonald’s current segmentation, it is best to use
psychographic segmentation to target on just two general categories of audiences
on the basis of knowledge of health, attitude and opinion of McDonald’s.
One segment is “I’m already doing it” segment and the other consists of those
who frequently eat in McDonald’s and do not want to buy healthy foods in
McDonald’s. In this segment, both “I know I should but …” and “Don’t bother me”
groups are included. The two have been segmented together since there is no
obvious boundary between their attitudes, which is always changing because of
nutrition information sources. Even if they have different attitudes towards health,
their lifestyle is almost the same and most of them are sensitive about social
acceptance and the opinion of others.
If we sub-segment the aforementioned segmentation, it can be as follows:
1. Young individuals, who can easily change attitudes, accept new ideas and who
pay much attention on beauty and figure. McDonald’s strategy can be targeted
from the perspective of “beauty-shaping;”
2. Children who really believe someone whom they like such as Ronald. If they get
the message of “1 hamburger + 1 salad + 1 game=1 healthy love”, they can be
willing to accept that and try to persuade their families to change bad eating
styles; and
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9. 3. Adults who frequent McDonald’s. Most of them start to care about their health but
cannot stop eating McDonald’s. “Keep eating ours in a healthier way” seems
good news for them.
Communication Objectives
As a response to these current trends, McDonald’s - France has been aiming
to design a new communications campaign to try to change the dietary behaviors of
a large number of people, including potential health-oriented customers and
frequent junk food users. McDonald’s new communication campaign, called “Happy
Exercise And Love Touch Health (HEALTH)” project, is in partnership with WHO,
nutritionists, local communities, fitness centers and various media channels, etc. This
campaign initially was to be carried out in U.S. for a year and later to be brought into
effect in other countries all over the world adaptively.
McDonald’s HEALTH campaign includes organized, communication-based
interventions aimed at different groups of people and social marketing efforts that
include communication activities.
The following can summarize McDonald’s communication objectives:
1. To change the image of McDonald’s from the junk food restaurant to one that
serves healthy food.
This objective aims to attract both those who are health-oriented and those
who pay much attention on food consumption and lifestyle, thus enlarging the
healthy market.
2. To change behavior of the existing consumers who are keeping on taking only
junk foods; to persuade frequent fast food users to change their lifestyle by
buying balanced meals from McDonald’s wide variety of old and new products.
McDonald’s nutrition promoters have been facing major challenges because
achieving and maintaining a wide-scale positive dietary change is but a complex
and formidable endeavor. Moreover, for positive change to occur, McDonald’s
needs to design nutrition messages that attract attention, make sense, and
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10. encourage change in people’s established attitudes and behaviors. This is to target
the audience in a scientifically precise, yet practical and motivating manner. With
these in place, McDonald’s concern would be on how people interpret these
messages in the media and realize which types of messages are more effective with
which types of target audiences psychology-wise.
Marketing Communication Elements
For McDonalds in France, we can suggest a few integrated marketing
communication elements so as to increase its effectiveness in communicating
properly the message that they want to convey.
Direct Marketing
Direct Marketing in the form of coupons and online customer service
providers can aid in the company’s communication to the public of the healthier
image that they are trying to build on. The company, being a well-known global
brand, needs not to advertise to be known as a brand, but rather as one that’s more
focused on its customers. An objective for this element would be to release at least at
least a thousand coupons every time a new product is launched. Another would be to
have a 100% response rate when it comes to comments, complaints and suggestions
online.
Advertisements
Advertising in the form of outdoor posters, television ads and the Internet can
be used for effective communication as well. Radio advertising targeted for
breakfast-seeking on-the-go workers, for example, can be played during the rush
hours of the morning so as to lure customers to drop by McDonald’s and just grab a
quick breakfast. A certain number of advertisements, 1 for each season (that’s 4 per
year), for example, can be used to measure this element’s effectiveness.
Sales Promotion
McDonalds is well known to children because of its Happy Meals. Capitalizing
on this, therefore, would only strengthen the connection between the children and
the brand. A thousand free gifts, for example, can be given away for the whole year
and at least 4 joint promotions with movies or events such as the World Cup or the
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11. Olympics can be established so as to provide the children with themed toys for the
year. The number of Happy Meals bought for each season can measure this
element’s success.
Creative Strategy
Applying what we have learned in class, our group has come up with a
creative marketing plan for McDonalds-France. Before we proceed to presenting it,
however, it is important to know the company’s positioning first.
Positioning Statement
McDonalds in France positions itself as an establishment that offers its wide
range of customers with the affordable, delicious and now healthy meal and
beverage options for greater satisfaction. Everything about their company revolves
around health, love, happiness, burgers and of course, Ronald McDonald. Its fame
and the wide variety of products and offerings allow McDonalds to have a target
market that extends to children, adults and everyone in between. Because of its fast
food nature, the consumers usually associate the brand to unhealthiness. Aside from
these, however, positive associations to fun, friends, and toys also happen with the
brand. McDonalds in France, in general, capitalizes greatly on its established name
and on its efforts of making its products healthier.
Media Strategy
For our media strategy, we have decided to focus on 4 main communication
avenues: the Internet, the television, the radio and printed materials.
The Internet Campaign
The Internet is becoming more and more important in advertising—even
overtaking the television, thereby indicating the important role that online
advertising can do to businesses like McDonald’s.
McDonald’s-France already has a website which focuses on nutrition, quality
and the green aspects. The top bar on the site is green and is clearly highlighting
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12. McDonald’s new green campaign. Games or contests are put up occasionally as
well, so as to keep the consumers entertained and interested.
For the next years, McDonald’s should continue focusing on the green aspects
and the nutritional information of its menu for these are the things that the customers
are most worried about. Also, since there is no real information about the carbon
footprint and the environmental problems on McDonald’s website, the group
suggests adding a section where customers can clearly see McDonald’s
environmental impact. This can strengthen the trust between the customers and the
company.
Rozenn Perrigot, Guy Basset and Gerard Cliquet discuss in their article,
entitled Multi-channel Communication: The case of Subway attracting new franchisees
in France, Subway while they search for new franchisees in France and what medias
they use for that (Perrigot et al. 2011). An interesting fact is that Subway used
regional websites in France for maximum reach to potential franchisees. Currently,
McDonald’s does not have official regional websites in France, so we include the
developing of regional sites in next year’s marketing plan to effectively target
different customer groups.
The article of Perrigot et al. also mentions Web 2.0 as an important marketing
media. This includes social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Perrigot et al. mentioned that it is in this way that maximum number of people be
reached. It may, however, be difficult to control the content of the message. These
are already important marketing channels for McDonalds and they should be used in
the future too.
The Television Campaign
The television has been an important marketing channel for McDonalds for a
long time. Because of the resources we need to put into developing the Internet
marketing campaign, the group suggests that television advertising be kept at the
same level. Its contents should follow our plan for a greener and healthier picture of
McDonald’s. The use of children and themes for children should be carefully
considered to avoid negative reactions from the customer, especially since it is not
even allowed in France for a child to promote a product (Whitelock et al. 1998).
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13. According to the study of Jeryl Whitelock and Jean-Christophe Rey, the
television commercials in France are more national than in the U.K. This means that
the advertising is more adapted to the country. This is probably because of the
language issue. French people are known of being proud of their language and
culture and do not easily want to adapt to foreign languages and manners. This is an
important thing to keep in mind if McDonald’s wants to reach the French customers.
Radio
As we all know, the radio right now is one of the weakest communication
methods, because of the existence of more interesting things such as the television,
computers, etc., and when people are in the car, they can just plug in an iPod and
avoid the bombs of publicity. In relation to this, McDonald’s just limits its radio ads to
suggestive ones that are addressed to those who are in for a quick drive through.
The group believes that such strategy can still be done. McDonald’s can focus
on on-the-go workers, specifically those who are most likely to grab a bite while
they are on their way to meetings, or maybe even parents who do not have any time
to cook anything, and the kids are about to come back from school. It is on these
times that our ads in the radio are going to come out, so they can stop worrying and
just go buy a few hamburgers for the family.
Print
McDonald’s invests huge amounts of money yearly in this area. Such can be
seen in how they sponsor various events especially in the field of sports. The group
believes that such a move is a way of promoting healthy living into the minds of its
consumers, thus strengthening their stand for a healthier image. This strategy must
be continued.
When people say print ads, billboards are the first ones that come up in their
minds. McDonald’s uses these a lot. As a matter of fact, the group believes that all of
us have in our minds the slogan *I’m loving it* for we see it everywhere. People see
this clown and they immediately remember that his name is Ronald and that they like
him—there is brand recognition and it is strong.
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14. The group also suggests that we sell the idea of the McCafe to the customers
for we think that these need work—it has almost been forgotten in France. In these
print ads, McDonald’s goal is to not only be a fast food restaurant, but also a cafeteria
where someone can come and sit there while reading the newspaper and have a
nice coffee in a warm place with some nice waiters that will be available for anything
you ask.
Media Schedule
To give an overview of how often we plan to launch these media, we have
prepared the following schedule:
N
D
J
F
M
A
M
j
j
A
S
O
Online
Television
Radio
Print
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15. Bibliography
Perrigot, R., Basset, G. & Cliquet, G. (2011). Multi-channel Communication: The case
of Subway attracting new franchisees in France. International Journal of Retail &
Distribution Management, Vol. 39 No. 6, p. 434-455.
Whitelock, J. & Rey, J-C. (1998). Cross-cultural Advertising in Europe: An Empirical
Survey of Television advertising in France and the UK. International Marketing
Review. Vol. 15 No. 4, p. 257-276.
Boswell, Dean. Assessment of McDonald’s Growth in the French Restaurant Market.
University of Maryland University College. 4 December 2005. Access:
http://printfu.org/read/assessment-of-mcdonald-s-growth-in-the-french-restaurant-
market-1-bc03.html?f=1qeYpurpn6Wih-
SUpOGunKqnh63i6crn29LV4N2O48yVusiw3uTG4MyM45Kw4OPd6dWF1d2W2dzNh
bbkztzXzpW_yt_j19rmydPkkrbP5tHa4YWdkbHYrpqfkubdkK_Zr56WppHg2ufc0uDC
udPgy5eo2KagsIfaiqDjrJ2lrojd4dncqaWU4t7K3ubS5NnZ5Nna4Njl0-eWyN_fmMXZy-
DMlp7OvNfV1sjVoNnS2oiw6g.
Business Wire. Research and Markets: Fast Food Market in France Report Covers
Forecasts up to 2015 and states that Industry is likely to Recover from 2012. 7 July
2011. Access:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110707005614/en/Research-Markets-
Fast-Food-Market-France-Report
Gomstyn, Alice. Gay Group: Don’t Trust McDonald’s Commercial. ABC News. 22
June 2010. Access: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/mcdonalds-commercial-france-
prompts-charges-hypocrisy-us-gay/story?id=10975302
Other links:
www.icmrindia.org/
www.americansinfrance.net/
www.mcdonalds.co.uk/
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-06-04/news/27066205_1_controversial-ad-
mcdonalds-media-matters
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