Sampling Design for McDonald's Millennial Consumer Survey
This paper outlines a sampling design for research aimed at helping McDonald's appeal to millennial consumers in the United States. Following a period of declining North American sales and customer counts, the study proposes surveying Americans aged 18–30 — defined as the millennial generation by both the White House Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Census Bureau. The paper discusses the rationale for the population boundaries, identifies social media and telecommunications channels as the most viable sampling frames, and examines potential sources of bias, including self-selection bias and the exclusion of millennials without digital access. The conclusion summarizes the key design decisions and their implications for survey accuracy.
- Introduction and Research Objective: Business case for millennial-focused consumer research
- Defining the Millennial Population: Population boundaries and demographic rationale
- Sampling Frame Options: Social media and telecom as survey channels
- Potential Sources of Bias: Self-selection, access gaps, and exclusion bias
- Summary of Sampling Design Decisions: Recap of key methodology choices
- References: Cited sources and government reports
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What makes this paper effective
- Clearly anchors the research problem in real business data (declining sales, falling customer counts) before moving into methodology, giving the design decisions practical context.
- Demonstrates awareness of multiple sampling frame options — social media, text messaging, in-person — and evaluates each against the realities of reaching the millennial demographic.
- Honestly identifies multiple layers of bias, including self-selection, digital access gaps, age cutoffs, and landline bias, showing methodological self-awareness rather than oversimplifying.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models how to connect a business research objective to specific methodological choices. Rather than presenting sampling decisions in the abstract, the author grounds each choice — population boundaries, frame selection, exclusion criteria — in the characteristics of the target group and the client's marketing goals, a technique essential in applied marketing research.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by stating the business problem and objective, then defines the target population with reference to government sources, explains why no geographic or demographic restrictions apply beyond age, evaluates feasible sampling frames, and devotes substantial attention to potential biases introduced by each approach. A brief summary section recaps the key design decisions before the reference list.
Introduction and Research Objective
The objective of this research is to assist McDonald's in appealing to millennial consumers. The company's North American sales had been flat for four years prior to this study, and U.S. sales — the company's largest market — declined 2.1% in 2014. This trend produced a corresponding decline in net income. Changing consumer tastes are frequently cited as a contributing problem; notably, the number of customers declined even more sharply than sales, falling 4.1%. The research addresses this problem by testing millennial attitudes toward food.
Defining the Millennial Population
The population for this study consists of Americans who belong to the millennial generation. This generation has been defined as those born between 1980 and the mid-2000s, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA, 2014). These individuals range in age from approximately 10 to 35. The survey population will be limited to those aged 18–30, ensuring that all respondents are adults and clearly within the millennial generation in cultural terms. This range also aligns closely with the U.S. Census Bureau's definition of millennials (born 1982–2000). Under the Census Bureau's definition, there are 83.1 million people in this generation.
The entire U.S. millennial population is used as the target population for several reasons. First, McDonald's targets all consumers. While the company recognizes that not every individual will visit its restaurants, it seeks to cast a wide net and attract as many Americans as possible. Consequently, there is no basis for geographic exclusion or exclusion based on any other demographic factor beyond the age boundaries described above.
Sampling Frame Options
Constructing a suitable sampling frame presents an interesting challenge. It is not sufficient to survey only college students, as they represent only a portion of the target population. Additionally, there are practical difficulties in reaching millennials through conventional means. Millennials are well known for not answering phone calls (Jenkins, 2015), and in-person surveys are expensive given that McDonald's requires feedback from across the entire country.
The sampling frame will most likely be drawn from social media membership or from customer databases held by telecommunications companies. These channels offer the most practical means of reaching millennials — either by prompting them to complete an online survey through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or by delivering survey invitations via text message purchased through a telecom carrier.
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