This paper examines the strategic efforts of major fast food chains — McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's — to reposition their brands in response to shifting consumer values, growing health consciousness, and competition from the fast casual market. Drawing on PESTEL analysis, consumer imagery theory, behavioral and cognitive learning theories, and cognitive dissonance, the paper analyzes why and how these companies have overhauled their store interiors, color schemes, menu offerings, and market segmentation strategies. The paper also evaluates the reported success of these redesigns, noting complicating factors such as the global recession, and identifies additional information needed to assess the true impact of the brand transformation efforts.
The decision to purchase, use, or consume the product of a particular brand is not simply a utilitarian decision that focuses on what goods a consumer wants — it is also a matter of the consumer's self-image. The customer asks himself, perhaps subconsciously, whether he is "the type of person" who eats at McDonald's or uses Bayer aspirin. From there, the customer makes a decision to use, or not use, the product. However, the answers to these questions are less than simple. They are intricately and intrinsically connected to brand image and perception. Consumers are willing to put more money and resources into things that make them feel good about themselves. Companies want to leave their customers feeling good about their purchasing decision, with a raised self-image. Yet what makes a person feel good about herself changes as values and society change. More than in any other industry, this may be true of food — English speakers even have an expression for it: "you are what you eat."
For at least the past several years — since around 2003 — fast food providers have been engaged in a process of trying to change consumer imagery of their brand. These brands — McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's — are attempting to reposition themselves in the consumer's mind as modern, and as such, adapted to the concerns of the times and of their consumers. According to trait theory in marketing, customers prefer brands that match themselves. Their customers have changed their needs and goals, and the brands must reflect this change in thinking and motivation. This paper will first discuss the fast food companies' attempt to change their marketing strategy through the framework of different marketing theories, then discuss how successful these attempts have been, and what other information would be useful in evaluating their success.
The PESTEL analysis takes into account the numerous factors in the external environment. Businesses need to take a proactive approach and stay ahead of these factors and upcoming changes.
The political environment for change in the fast food industry is rich, especially considering the social factors noted below. Recent social changes have brought the fast food industry under fire and subject to increased regulation by government agencies.
Because of the global recession, many middle-class customers may be forced to downgrade their lifestyles and eat fast food. A redesign may help them feel better about these buying decisions.
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, released in 2001 by investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, was the product of three years investigating the fast food industry. Compared to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which exposed corruption in the meatpacking industry during the early twentieth century, Fast Food Nation examines the local and global influence of the United States fast food industry. This book, and the film adaptation, could be credited with sparking the broader fast food revamp. In his detailed and forceful portrayal of different aspects of the fast food industry, Schlosser drew connections between fast food providers and American obesity, raised concerns about meat quality, and condemned fast food companies' marketing toward children. Schlosser indicted fast food with the "malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity and propelled the juggernaut of American cultural imperialism abroad" (Adamson, 2002). The fast food industry faced a public relations disaster and accused Schlosser of fear-mongering (Sagon, 2001). In 2001, Schlosser said publicly that he was optimistic about changes in the fast food market and the industry's ability to effect change in the meatpacking sector. Since then, the fast food market has attempted to change its image dramatically, and these recent redesigns are best understood within that longer arc.
The rising and falling of nutritionism as a value is also a major factor in the food market in general, which certainly affects these major players. Nutritionism, defined by Michael Pollan as "the widely shared but unexamined assumption … that the key to understanding food is indeed the nutrient" (2007), is big business. Compared to fifty years ago, the average consumer today is genuinely obsessed with the "scientific" facts about whether a food is healthy. Pollan argues that simply using facts about individual nutrients exploits people's reductive bias toward dividing the world into good and bad. Along with anti-globalization sentiment, this focus on nutrition and health has demonized fast food companies. Pollan has since led an anti-food-science movement, which some critics have accused of being quasi-religious. As a result of either factor — both share the idea that health is tied to food intake — some restaurants have changed their menus as well as their appearance. Most fast food providers now sell salads, though they are often loaded with sugar (Marco, 2007). A Wendy's Garden Sensations Mandarin Chicken Salad, for instance, contained more calories, more fat, more carbohydrates, and more sugar than a Double Stack. The customer feels good about choosing a salad, but still feels satiated from the calorie content — and, more importantly to the brand, is left with positive feelings about the purchase.
Technologies are constantly evolving, making it cheaper to redesign and refurbish a chain of restaurants.
Pollan's work reflects a growing trend within the food-buying public: a care for the environment. There is increasing emphasis on local food, whole foods, and vegetables. The growing consensus that more natural is healthier places fast food providers in the difficult position of selling a highly processed product to customers who want to believe they are eating something wholesome.
Numerous lawsuits against fast food restaurants, accusing them of contributing to American obesity, create a compelling opportunity for brand redesign as a form of image rehabilitation.
Some of the articles about this phenomenon suggest that the brands are adapting to meet the needs of their original consumer base, who have grown older over time. As these customers have aged, they have updated their self-perception, developing a taste for more dignified consumption and wanting their fast food purchases to align with their new self-image and preferences. Specifically, these fast food chains have changed their menus, interiors, and exteriors. McDonald's has allocated $2.4 billion to redo their stores in the United States and abroad (Paynter, 2010).
This theory — that the aging consumer market is driving the redesign — also helps explain the possibility, suggested in other articles, that the fast casual market has encroached on fast food's territory. Burger King, McDonald's, and Wendy's must now compete with chains like Panera and Chipotle, and must adapt in order to remain competitive. The fast casual market offers a slightly more formal environment, and consumers tend to perceive it as a healthier choice.
Specifically, fast food brands are trying to break out of their perceived place in the market as a food of last resort that is wholly bad for one's health. They want to be seen as not merely acceptable in an emergency, but as comfortable and even aspirational — somewhere a consumer would not be ashamed to be seen. As Schlosser (2001) points out, this reflects a certain cultural construction of what fast food is and which consumers the companies wish to attract. Though there is a limited body of available research in this area, the companies are inevitably choosing to privilege one cultural construction of fast food consumption over others.
The new concept revolves around the idea of the restaurant as a community center — a place for young people to gather — fundamentally changing consumer perception of the brand's personality. In order to align McDonald's with the slow-food trend, the company had to begin paying more attention to the presentation and the overall eating experience. To that end, the brands are making concrete changes to the consumer experience. The restaurants are shifting from bright fluorescent lights to softer, more modern lighting that creates a more home-like atmosphere. Ironically, the fluorescent lights and bright colors that were first emblematic of these brands were themselves considered the scientific, modern aesthetic of their day. Color schemes are shifting away from red and yellow toward terra cotta, olive, and sage green. Color, in particular, is highly variable and emotionally laden, and fast food providers are now moving from garish palettes to more sleekly designed exteriors and interiors. One McDonald's location in Manhattan even features a grand piano visible from the street. This marketing approach fits well into psychoanalytic theories of personality, appealing simultaneously to the id — the pleasure of delicious fast food — and the superego — the sense that it is something worth doing.
The companies are also dividing restaurant interiors into distinct zones, allowing them to serve different customer segments somewhat independently. This arrangement separates, for example, customers working on laptops during a business break from families with young children. Market segmentation, based on differing demographics or consumer traits, allows these companies to tailor the experience of each consumer group more precisely to what that group wants, thereby maximizing consumer value. It also allows companies to more carefully target advertising and the in-store experience to specific demographics.
"How redesigns reshape consumer learning and attitudes"
"Sales data and recession complicate redesign success"
To more deeply understand the actual effect of the redesign, more information and statistics would be needed — including a comprehensive picture of the fast food market over the relevant period, comparable data from other market segments, and an assessment of how the global recession independently affected consumer behavior. Only with this fuller picture could analysts reliably separate the impact of the redesign from the broader economic shifts that were occurring simultaneously.
You’re 59% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 2 sections.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.