Environmental Factors Lovin' it --

Environmental Factors Lovin' it" -- How environmental factors affect global and domestic marketing decisions at McDonald's One of the most famous companies in America and in the world is the McDonald's corporation. According to Morgan Spurlock's infamous fast-food expose/experiment "Supersize Me" children can identify the smiling clown more easily than almost any other cultural icon with the exception of Santa Claus. However, according to BusinessWeek, McDonald's global chief marketing officer stressed: "We're a global marketer. We're a big marketer.

We're not a mass marketer" ("Online Extra: Marketing in the 'the Age of I'" 2004, BusinessWeek Online). In other words, the company carefully tailors its products and messages to meet the needs of individual markets. The beer available at many European McDonalds is of course one famous distinction between different McDonald's at different locations. Differences in marketing can also be seen in the Israeli McDonald's McShawarma, which is of course kosher and similarly caters to regional tastes.

"The McShawarma is a turkey shawarma served on flatbread, and despite the shawarma's popularity in a number of countries around the world, has remained an item only available in Israeli McDonald's" (Squires, 2007). In Japan, the hamburger's exoticism is stressed, although "back at home in the United States, McDonald's trendlines have been as limp as a day-old French fry" (Lev, 1997).

Because McDonald's was the first company to really introduce the hamburger on a mass scale to the nation, consumers in Japan consume America and become a bit American by extension while eating a McDonald's hamburger. Interestingly, the traditionally healthy Japanese seem to take perverse delight in daring to consume the unhealthiness that is America, in advertisement for a Japanese-specific product: "Two beef patties and cheese topped with a fried egg and bacon. Cutely referred to as 'heart attack on a bun'" (Squires, 2007).

Perhaps this explains why the McSpaghetti is not a staple of the Italian McDonald's menu but those of McDonald's in Singapore, as Italian-American cooking is associated with America in that nation (Squires, 2007). The Israeli McDonald marketed the new McShwarma by adopting "a surprisingly appropriate scene from 'Pulp Fiction'" in its ad which again merges an ambiguous aspect of American culture, like media violence with McDonald's global image -- and ironically to sell something that is not present upon American McDonald's menus (Squires, 2007).

In America, McDonald's has had to cope with different recent marketing challenges. Domestically, to counteract charges that the company promotes obesity in children, McDonald's has eliminated the "supersize" extra value meals and incorporate more salads and healthy entries into its American menu, rather than adding more decadent burgers as it has in Japan.

It has also continued a kind of two-pronged strategy to attract both adults and children -- on one hand, emphasizing the dollar menu, and also still recruiting children: "McDonald's understood that the parent was making the purchasing decision...What McDonald's marketing executives did was ingenious. They put a $.50 toy in with the hamburger, French fries, and Coke. Then they gave it a special name, calling it a Happy Meal.

Then they marketed it to the kids...Have you ever had your child ask for a Happy Meal? There's only one place you can buy a Happy Meal. And that's at McDonald's" ("Marketing Strategy Mandatory for Business Success," 2001, Trailer Body Builders).

Thus, although hamburgers and fries are synonymous with 'comfort food' in America, in other countries, these food items are exotic -- also the pull of the 'whining' child has less clout than in America, hence the lesser popularity of Happy Meals and the greater emphasis on adult staples like beer.

The idea of media violence in "Pulp Fiction" rather than "I'm lovin' it" shows how America is capitalizing on even negative or perversely, darkly attractive associations of American culture in other lands, as is the heart attack on a bun that the Japanese love to buy. Yet in the United States, McDonald's new campaign "I'm Lovin' it" caters to a more upbeat youth market and stresses health, athleticism, and wholesomeness.

Americans do not need to be told that McDonald's is all-American, unlike foreigners, and one of the attractions of the chain is its uniformity, thus McDonald's seldom caters to American regional tastes, as it does to international dining habits. McDonald's is clearly pursuing the right strategy domestically, as he Justin Timberlake ad oversaw an "unbroken string of monthly sales increases" ("Online Extra: Marketing in the 'the Age of I'" 2004, BusinessWeek Online).

These increases were also partly due to the McGriddle breakfast sandwiches and entree salads, playing upon American desire for novelty in the form of a breakfast sandwich that tastes like maple syrup and also a desire to adopt more healthy eating habits and still eat at McDonald's. The new dollar meal stresses value for American consumers, although its sandwiches are less of a bargain in other nations, based upon the base salary of consumers.

In China, unlike Europe where adults make most of the dining decision in a family, children have more sway, given China's infamous one-child policy, which has created virtually a nation of only (some say) spoiled children in China's more affluent urban locations. McDonald's head of marketing recently stated: "What has changed.