Create a 5 page essay paper that discusses The Marketing Mix: Product and Branding Strategies for McDonalds Company.

The report is intended to provide an insight of the two major product attributes of McDonald’s. No other fast food brand was as successful as that of McDonald’s in terms of branding. This huge success can be attributed to the extreme focus given to product attributes. Quick Service and Family Orientation are the two of the major product attributes of McDonald’s that differentiate itself from the competitors. Based on these attributes, a product positioning map can be created for McDonald’s. The product positioning map gives a clear representation of the focus given by various fast food market leaders. Quick service and family focus are two main attributes on which McDonald’s compete. The map shows clearly that no other fast food brands focus on these attributes than that of McDonald’s. Quick service is almost a common attribute for all the brands. All the competitors listed above scores good in terms of quick services. But none of these brands provide family focus in their advertisements. This is one of the reasons for McDonald’s additional revenue from the children customer group.

Target market: Like any other fast food chain, the target market of McDonalds is the people who like have a fun place to eat with friends, family, colleagues and even alone while rushing towards the office. One can find all categories of customers at a McDonald’s restaurant. Therefore, the target customer groups of McDonalds can be classified as Parents with Children, Children, Business Customers and Teenagers. (McDonalds UK, 2008) Each customer groups have their own purpose for visiting a McDonald’s store. For parents, they want to take the children out for a nice meal. For children they want to have fun at the restaurant than that of the food. While for the business customers, it is a quick grab meal within their busy office schedules and finally for the teenagers, it is a hang out place with stylish menu. There is not much difference in the target market for other brands. But McDonalds give an additional focus for branding aimed at children so that the parents are being pulled to the restaurants by their kids. Product Strategy: McDonalds classify their menu under three classifications namely permanent menu, temporary menu, local products and local adaptation. “McDonald’s features several products on their menu that are permanent and do not change. Examples of this include their basic hamburger and cheeseburger, the Big Mac and the Quarter Pounder.” (Clark, 2011) The main product strategy of McDonalds is to make frequent changes in the menu. McDonalds make changes in the menu over time as per the changes in the customer preferences and attitudes. Such products are mostly the temporary products. At the same time customers are also not flooded with too many menus. McDonalds makes it a point that no new product will cannibalize the sales of an existing product. The marketing efforts of each menu are based on the life cycle stage on which the product is. Another product strategy of McDonalds is localization of the products. McDonalds had identified that cultural differences from one country to the other necessitates alteration of the menu as per the customer preferences of individual countries. Therefore, certain menu in one country can only be found at the McDonalds store of that country. McDonald’