The promotional marketing mix refers to advertisement strategy, is a tactic a company uses to communicate with customers. Marketing communication is an important component of promotion marketing mix where the company will convey a message about the company products with the intention to persuade target customers to purchase the company’s products.
Under Appendix 2.0, promotion marketing mix of McDonald’s covers most of the marketing communication tools such as media advertising, sales promotions, direct marketing, public relations, and personal selling (Li 2016). First of all, advertising is known as a most significant way to promote McDonald’s product and the advertisement conduct in wide range media such as on television, cinema, radio, online, newspaper or magazine, billboards as well as poster sites.
Advertisement is an indirect method used by McDonald’s to tell the customers that the company is launching new products or having special deals.
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However, McDonald’s may occasionally place television advertisement on a seasonal basis such as during festive seasons and normally aim to attract children rather than adults. In order to target the children market, McDonald’s has made communication more effectively by putting advertisement video in cinema during Disney films. According to Bhasin (2019), McDonald’s giving small toys along with the meals when their parents purchase a happy meal set.
In additions, McDonald’s Malaysia is announcing ‘Prosperity Burger is Back’ on their official website, by creating advertisement video and posted on social media such as Instagram, Facebook page, YouTube channel as well as on Twitter. As prosperity burger is a product available on a certain period only, normally once in a year. Through these advertisements, audiences will be aware of the particular product.
The following marketing communication tool used by McDonald’s is sales promotion, whereby this method is a popular marketing technique used to attract more consumer to purchase the company’s products, mentioned by Meyer (2018). McDonald’s has rolled out numerous exclusive deals on McDonald’s apps.
For instance, a chicken prosperity super value set consist of one chicken prosperity burger, one twister fries, one drinks and one ice-cream that selling original price at RM21.49 but now can be purchased at RM17.99 via McDonald’s mobile apps. Customers can redeem such deals by scanning or presenting the barcode at self-order kiosk or at the counter. Such an offer and discount are a way of attracting a large number of customers.
Furthermore, McDonald’s is involved in many public relations activities which help stimulate the business through goodwill and positive brand image. According to McDonald’s official website (2019), the activities McDonald’s has undertaken such as Ronald McDonald House Charities and HACER Scholarships for Hispanic Students.
Ronald McDonald House is first opened in 1974, with an intent to provide a comfortable place for sick children and families as well as providing the care and resources they need. All these programmes and activities support communities while boosting the goodwill of McDonald’s brand.
Another marketing communication tool carried out by McDonald’s which is direct marketing. Direct marketing in term of communicating directly with customer by using emails based, telephone or online marketing without any third party involved.
Different regions of McDonald’s offering different products and services, but McDonald’s from each region has doing well in developing their own unique online website which able to provide direct information towards customers on their products and giving enough knowledge about their special deals, stated by Rodrigues & Nikhill & Jacob (2016, p. 54).
Lastly, personal selling is a traditional and direct tool of marketing communication, involving communication between two people in which one party make an effort to influence other parties. Rodrigues & Nikhill & Jacob (2016, p. 54) said this method of promotion treated as highly valuable by McDonald’s whereby employees of McDonald’s need to build a good relationship with every single customer even that is only a few minutes taken to place an order.
For example, customer C would like to order cheeseburger medium meal set but the McDonald’s staff is giving advice whether would like to upgrade to a large meal set with the addition of RM 2. This face-to-face communication has a persuasive impact in which the customer might likely pay for additional to upgrade the meals. Also, face-to-face communication encountered in personal selling will create a good impression of the McDonald’s company as due to its interactivity.
