Marketing in the News - McDonalds
Marketing in the News
In this post, I'll be writing about McDonald's debut of the "Chicken Big Mac" and their dupe restaurant chain they've done to help promote it. The reason I picked this article is because everyone knows McDonald's, and their promotions have massive budgets to play around with, letting them to lots of different extreme ideas. The issue right now is McDonald's has had a small drop in sales and is looking to regain control of their market share.
McDonald's value proposition is to be affordable to a wide audience, convenient and fast, and to cater to as many people as possible, I believe this advertising campaign is an attempt to cater to an even wider audience that may enjoy chicken over beef.
Starting October 10th, McDonald's will have a limited-time item alongside their iconic "Big Mac" that will replace the burger with chicken. They state that they're tapping into their fans' interest in "dupe culture" which marketingdive.com states is "the Gen Z-favored tactic of finding affordable replacements for premium, luxury items." This also includes their Los Angeles dupe location "McDonnell's" where they'll serve the Chicken Big Mac.
Their ad campaign doesn't stop here, however. As I stated before McDonald's has massive budgets to play around with, so they've also partnered with one of Twitch's top live streamers, Kai Cenat where "Cenat will debate whether or not the Chicken Big Mac is a Big Mac with his celebrity friends." Cenat has a reach into gaming culture with a large, younger audience that is interested in everything he's doing, so I imagine McDonald's hopes lots of fans will go and try out their new item with his livestream.
They also have plans to take over the Las Vegas Sphere for an extended period of time, paying roughly half a million dollars alone on that to advertise the Big Mac and Chicken Big Mac, and while social media numbers aren't everything, man is it looking rough, this one definitely should've been run through the marketing team a few more times.
McDonald's has recently posted they've had a .7% drop in sales following boycotts regarding their support for Israel in the Middle East, so this move to flex their marketing muscle likely hopes to regain higher numbers, as it may not sound like much, but with a company as big as them that's millions and millions of dollars in that sale drop.
So, how did the product review? Not too well it would seem, Detroit Free Press and Fox News describe it as "bland and messy" with lots of commenters across other articles I've searched seeming to agree with its underwhelming nature. The patties are described as large chicken nuggets which sounds a bit dry for a sandwich.
Long term I'm sure it won't matter how much they've spent on this advertising campaign, but to spend this much for it to be described as "underwhelming" has to hurt to some extent. The dupe restaurant is a really unique idea that takes a lot of money to pull off, which I'd argue is one of if not the best parts of the campaign, and it's exclusively set in Los Angeles. Marketing on the sphere may be a bold strategy, but I don't think it will have drawn enough attention or sales to have been worth the advertising costs.
It's very clear to me this was at least partially an attempt to compete with Wendy's "Krabby Patty Meal" in their Spongebob collaboration. I don't know if this was a fight worth picking for McDonald's, as it's clear they're attempting to target a younger audience by sponsoring Kai Cenat. Looking at the numbers available, I think the impressions on the advertisement were mediocre at best with how much I imagine they spent on it.
While I think Spongebob and Kai Cenat have very different audience ages, I still think there's some overlap to an extent. I don't think McDonald's had an entirely bad campaign, if I were them I think they could've cut some corners by ignoring the sphere entirely and releasing another item or two alongside the sandwich.
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