intergrated marketing communication strategy of McDonald

The integrated marketing communication strategy of McDonald’sThe integrated marketing communication strategy of McDonald’s by Larry Light was successful in 2002. McDonald’s firm which was found in 1948 and it was the largest fast food restaurants in the world, with more than 30000 outlets in 118 countries like Britain, India, Canada, China and so on(James, 2009). However, McDonald’s declared that 175 stores would be closed and the strategy of expanding was protected in 2002. Moreover, the position of brand was to appeal to ‘mother and children’ that was brand aging due to the change of opinion for marriage. In addition, McDonald’s insisted to launch the chain store by oneself without franchise. Then McDonald’s happened the situation of loss in 2002. Therefore, Larry Light who was the global chief marketing officer of McDonald’s planed a series of integrated marketing communication program for McDonald’s to change the bad situation. The integrated marketing communication is to develop, implement and evaluate the strategic roles of various communications programs, and by integrating a verity of messages to provide consistency, clarity and maximum communication influence(Yeshin, 1998). The objective of the integrated marketing communication is to affect directly the behaviour of customer who is selected communication by McDonald’s. Therefore, the essay demonstrate that through six marketing communications aspects which are advertising, sales promotion, public relations, product and services, media to evaluate the effectiveness of the integrated marketing communication strategy of McDonald’s(Shimp, 2000).McDonald’s use effective advertising to grab consumer attention, and let customer get the information of brand from advertisement directly. As McDonald’s combine brand-image strategy and positioning strategy to apply in the advertising. The brand-image strategy which is psychological needs advertising to associate the product with symbols in order to develop an image for a brand(Shimp, 2000). McDonald’s still declared the happiness image of ‘appealing to mother and children’in the past like the advertising of 1990 which illustrated many lives between McDonald’s and the role of mother and children from dawn to dusk(Kaye, 2013).However, as the implementing of integrated marketing communication strategy in 2002, the McDonald’s turn the old image into the new thinking which is cool, you can make decision for yourself and do things one’s own way in order to get the image of younger and fashion. For instance, the advertising 2009 which demonstrated the element of cool and everyone does things by own way(Moore, 2012). In addition, successful advertising must need positioning strategy which is the mind of consumer for a brand. The McDonald’s positioned at the family which had almost fifty years in the advertising before the happening of integrated marketing communication strategy(Leo Burnett London, 2008). Nevertheless McDonald’s puts attention on the group of consumer who are under the thirty-five age. Moreover, the chain store of McDonald’s started to use the fashionable black as the color of poster and uniform of employees which was showed from the advertising of 2012(Leo Burnett London, 2012). As the popular brand-image and the position of young group, McDonald’s make the advertising have more effectiveness.It is essential for sales promotion to make sure the continuity with other aspects of the marketing communications plan. Therefore, the image and values of brand must be integrated with other elements to ensure their consistency(Yeshin, 1998). Sales promotions are the ‘activities that stimulate consumer purchases and improve retailer or middlemen effectiveness and co-operation’(Cateora and Graham, 1999). And sales promotion has the high power to support general advertising which has fewer actual purchase actions than sales promotion which target to potential consumers. There are many techniques in sales promotion, for instance, money off, the pack, coupons, free gift, coupons and sweepstakes and so on. McDonald’s uses the sales promotion strategy which is consumer-oriented promotions including the activities of price discrimination and free gifts, coupons and sweepstakes. McDonald’s presented the activities of sales promotion which was ‘surprise, but five RMB’, moreover, almost ten products reduced under the five RMB in 2009(Ruang, 2009). The objective of this type promotion for McDonald’s is to reward consumer who like McDonald’s and get the attention from young for their new image. So it is effective. In addition, in order toensure the consistency with declaration of advertising, McDonald’s come up with very cool activities of sales promotion like free gift which is that if you say the word of ‘I’m loving it’to employee, you can get ice cream(Timberlake, 2003). These activities are very popular in younger group. In addition, to coupons McDonald’s would give coupon booklets to promote the food on every month. And you also can find this promotion from newspaper and magazine. And a coupon provides cents-off saving to consumers upon its redemption which is a promotional device(Shimp, 2000). McDonald’s want to increase sales and improve the loyalty of consumer, and these coupons can stimulate demand and push customer to buy certain items. What is more, sweepstakes is to attract a lot of consumers, the advertising of McDonald’s Monopoly sweepstakes was very famous around many countries in 1987 which created the repurchase of encourage and loyalty(Lurker, 2008). The aim of sales promotion for McDonald’s is achieved, so the sales promotion is effective.Compared with other elements of integrated marketing communications, undeniably, public relations activities have the great contribution. The one of reasons is that public relations can give more credibility than other forms of integrated marketing communications to customers. In addition, it is very important for all parties to ensure that the objectives are realized and understood. And the objective of public relations is to develop favourable attitudes and understanding of company, and to establish goodwill(Yeshin, 1998). Therefore, McDonald’s can cut the surrounding noise by public relations, and use it to publicize the reputation and name of organization and to reach small group consumers efficiently and effectively. At different times, public relations have a variety of different functions like opinion forming, in-house activities, product and service publicity, liaison with public officials and business sponsorship and so on(Yeshin, 1995). After the implementing of integrated marketing communications of McDonald’s, McDonald’s combine two function of public relations which are opinion forming and business sponsorship to achieve the objective. Ming yao became the image spokeswoman of McDonald’s in 2004, and Ming yao played the key role in activities which declared the health of body, action, the plan ofOlympics and consumer communication. And McDonald’s want to get opinion forming which was younger and fashion by Ming yao as spokesman. In addition, business sponsorship also is an important aspect in the public relations for McDonald’s to attract increased attention. Because the sponsor wants to achieve image association and name recognition by sponsoring some event or particular sporting. And the media like to give considerable levels of coverage to culture events and sporting(Yeshin, 1995). Therefore, McDonald’s demonstrated to extend the partnership with Olympic Games until 2012 in 2004(Durham, 2004). In addition, McDonald’s had unique rights of sales in the field of the services of restaurant and food during the 2006 winter Olympic Games in Italy, 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, 2010 winter Olympic in Vancouver. In addition, McDonald’s can used the symbol of five rings in the global marketing(Olympic Movement, 2014). McDonald’s wants to improve the name and brand awareness, and achieve image reinforcement which is younger and fashion through the sponsorship. And more and more young people like the McDonald’s services and food from Olympic Games which is shifts in attitudes towards the organization. As the objectives are quantified and clearly defined and the results of public relations is very good, therefore, there are more effectiveness for McDonald’s public relations after integrated marketing communications strategy(McDonald’s, 2012).Product and services strategies are important aspect in the integrated marketing communications strategy. In particular, branding is the core of the marketing communication activities. ‘A brand is defined as a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or services from those of other sellers’(Bennett, 1995). McDonald’s can get legal protection for its competitors by branding the product. In addition, McDonald’s can plan the inventory more efficiently, and to ensure the rapid processing of orders. Moreover, McDonald’s spend most budget in advertising to build the brand image(Carreras, 2014). Sometimes the product is to satisfy the needs of consumer, for instance, McDonald’s planed the new products which were ‘a series of rice wind’, ‘kimchi fried rice Xiang Bao’ to satisfyneeds of local consumer in Taiwan and Singapore in 2003. These new products give up the strict standard model, and to improve the strategy of localization. The McDonald’s Logo which was created by Heye & Partner Gmbh is most successful. Now it is the official logo with yellow ‘M’ word and the word of ‘I’m lovin’it’ which is black under ‘M’(Sagar, 2013). McDonald’s wants to appeal to the consumer of young group and shows the brand image of young and fashion, so Ronald McDonald was changed from old uncle to the new slimline Ronald Mcdonald which was young and wearing bright clothes(Roberts, 2011). In addition, to services McDonald’s provides free WiFi for consumers in China marketing to achieve the needs of customer and achieves the goodwill(Xu, 2012). From the product and services strategy to see that McDonald’s changes the logo, the image of character of Ronald McDonald to appeal to young group and grab attention from customer and this strategy is effective because the objective of these changes is achieved.Media strategy is important and complicated in integrated marketing communication strategy, and media planning must keep the consistency with advertising strategy and other marketing strategy. The objective of integrated advertising campaign is to generate high levels of frequency and reach among the target group of young. Selection of media and vehicles need company to do a media planning which is to build long-term equity of brand(Shimp, 2000). However, the process of media planning need to coordinate with advertising strategy in integrated marketing communications strategy. You need to know the advertising objectives, advertising budget and message, followed by media strategy which involves the selection of target group, objective specification, selection of media and vehicle and media buying(Yeshin, 1998). Therefore, after the implementing of integrated marketing communications strategy, McDonald’s select the target audience who is youth in particular under the 45 age(Sharan, 2011). And media objective of McDonald’s is to reaching the target group who is young, and it is necessary for McDonald’s to make these target audience see and read the advertising during the period time(Warshaw, 2011). As McDonald’s wants to grab the attention of target audience of young group, McDonald’s chooses a concentrated media mix to maximize stimulating the targetconsumers. Of course, selection of the media or vehicle also needs to consider the differentiation of culture in different countries for McDonald’s because the passion of people for different media is affected by the local culture. For instance, North Americans and Austrians spend time watching television with 280 minutes per day and 153 minutes per week respectively(Mooij, 2010). In addition, people who are in the poorer countries spend more watching television time than in the richer countries. Therefore, in the collectivistic and high power distance cultures like China, India, the time of watching television is highest in the proportion of leisure time(ibid). Therefore, in the market of China, McDonald’s chooses television as the main media of advertising because the young like watching television(Caprio, 2012). In addition, to USA and UK, McDonald’s needs to do more outdoor advertising as the young people in these countries like outdoor activities(Warren-Payne, 2013). The media strategy of McDonald’s has great successful in the marketing communications, so it is effective in the plan of integrated marketing communications strategy of McDonald’s.In conclusion, the integrated marketing communication strategy of McDonald’s get great successful in marketing communications by the implementing of strategy in advertising, sales promotion, public relations, product and services, media. The effectiveness of every aspect develops very well, and the target audience of every aspects of marketing communication all is young. In addition, McDonald’s achieves the objective of change the brand image, and young group accepts the image fashion and younger from brand. And McDonald’s combine brand-image strategy and positioning strategy to apply in the advertising for grabbing attention of youth. And sales promotion has the high power to support general advertising, therefore, McDonald’s uses the sales promotion strategy which is consumer-oriented promotions including the activities of price discrimination and free gifts, coupons and sweepstakes to get the attention from young for their new image. Moreover, McDonald’s combine two functions of public relations which are opinion forming and business sponsorship to achieve the objective of improving the name and brand awareness, and achieving image reinforcement which is younger and fashion throughthe sponsorship. In addition, McDonald’s changes the logo and character of Ronald McDonald to build new brand image which is young and fashion and to appeal to the consumer of young group. What is more, McDonald’s chooses a concentrated media mix to maximize stimulating the target consumers of youth. As McDonald’s achieves successful in every aspect marketing communications after the implementing of integrated marketing communications strategy, the effectiveness of integrated marketing communications strategy is very great.ReferencesTONY YESHIN, 1998. Integrated marketing communication: the holistic approach. Britain: Butterworth/Heinemann.RANDY JAMES, 2009. McDonald’s Abroad. TIME[online]. 28 October. Available from:/time/world/article/0,8599,1932839,00.html[Accessed 3 January 2015]TERENCE A. SHIMP, 2000. Advertising promotion: supplemental aspects of integrated marketing communication. 5th ed. London: Dryden.TONY KAYE, 2013. McDonald’s-A Day in the life[online video]. Available from: https:///watch?v=DAi8QmIl1Jc[Accessed 3 January 2015]GUY MOORE, 2012. McDonald’s. Just passing by[online video]. Available from: https:///watch?v=VjmcKg_Qo40 [Accessed 3 January 2015]LEO BURNETT LONDON, 2008. McDonald’s Planting[online video]. Available from:https:///watch?v=YeXCEBUTutA [Accessed 3 January 2015]LEO BURNETT LONDON, 2012. We all make the games[online video]. Available from:https:///watch?v=rcusUGMT9sc [Accessed 3 January 2015]CATEORA, P.R. and GRAHAM, J.L. 1999. International marketing. Boston: Irwin McGraw-Hill.JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, 2003. I’M LOVING IT[online]. Available from:/detail.php?id=24958 [Accessed 4 January 2015]YI LING RUANG, 2009. The sales promotion of product of McDonald’s. CHINANEWS[online]. 04 February. Available from:/cj/xfsh/news/2009/02-04/1550090.shtml[Accessed 4 January 2015]INTERNET LURKER, 2008. McDonald’s Monopoly commercial[online video]. Available from:https:///watch?v=zqvLiX6iTFU [Accessed 4 January]TONY YESHIN, 1995. Marketing communications strategy. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.DICK DURHAM, 2004. McDonald’s extend Olympic sponsorship. YACHTING MONTHLY[online]. 27 February. Available from;/news/mcdonalds-extend-olympic-sponsorship-2652 2 [Accessed 5 January 2015]THE OLYMPIC MOVEMENT, 2014. MCDONALD’S[online]. Available from: /sponsors/mcdonalds [Accessed 5 January 2015] MCDONALD’S OFFICAL WEBSITE, 2012. Why does McDonald’s choose to be an Olympic sponsor?[online]. Available from:/ukhome/whatmakesmcdonalds/questions/sport/olympics /why-does-mcdonalds-choose-to-be-an-olympic-sponsor.html[Accessed 6 January 2015]PETER D BENNETT, 1995. Dictionary of Marketing Terms. 2nd ed. America: The American Marketing Association.ANA POMPOSO CARRERAS, 2014. What is the secret to McDonald’s Global Branding Success?[online]. Available from:/blogs/marketing/what-is-the-secret-to-mcdonalds-global-b randing-success/ [Accessed 6 January 2015]JULIA SAGAR, 2013. The story behind the McDonald’s logo[online]. Available from:/logo-design/mcdonalds-logo-short-11135325[Accessed 6 January 2015]FIONA ROBERTS, 2011. Thought clowns were creepy? Meet the very first Ronald McDonald on his 1963 TV debut[online]. Available from:/news/article-2001089/Meet-Ronald-McDonald-1963-TV-debut.html [Accessed 6 January 2015]XING XU, 2012. How does the organization win?[online]. Available from:/m/person/article/861.html [Accessed 7 January 2015] ANITA SHARAN, 2011. McDonald’s says youth are primary target consumers[online]. Available from:/article/mcdonalds-says-youth-are-primary-target-consumers/685 0.html [Accessed 7 January 2015]AUBREY WARSHAW, 2011. Objectives of McDonald’s[online]. Available from: /info_8360450_objectives-mcdonalds.html [Accessed 7 January 2015]MARIEKE DE MOOIJ, 2010. Global marketing and advertising: understanding cultural paradoxes. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE publications, Inc.ANDREW WARREN –PAYNE, 2013. 10 brilliant digital marketing campaigns from McDonald’s[online]. Available from:https:///blog/63032-10-brilliant-digital-marketing-campaigns-from-mcdonald-s/ [Accessed 8 January 2015]STACY CAPRIO, 2012. Mcdonald’s Commercials in the U.S vs China[online vedio]. Available from:https:///watch?v=a6r8HwHgm2E [Accessed 8 January 2015]。