McDonald's

Consumer Edge Insight conducted a survey of consumer perceptions about 20 different fast food restaurants. Specifically, how are they ranked by consumer perceptions on different attributes, such as:

If, as they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, fast casual restaurants should be flattered by the recent efforts of McDonald’s and other quick-serve restaurants.  Many fast feeders are trying to emulate chains like Chipotle, Smashburger, and Panera, since fast casual players have stolen share from them for the last couple of years and outrank them in customer studies.

Talk about a brand that's got its business right. The stores are consistently clean and efficiently run. The products are good, well-priced, and comparable all over the word, as is the value proposition. It innovates successful new products, like McCafe coffee, but doesn't do much novel marketing or social media experimentation to promote them, or itself (unlike Burger King, for instance). It's most memorable advertising harkens back to the introduction of the Big Mac and Ronald McDonald's younger years.

"As an insurance measure, due in part to a recent string of robberies, African-American customers are now required to pay an additional fee of $1.50 per transaction," read the sign captured in a photo and Tweeted to the cosmos last weekend. McDonald's promptly Tweeted that it was a hoax, and then issued a shorter reposte that read "That seriously McDonalds picture is a hoax" (the RT'ing of the photo had run under the tisk-tisk headline "Seriously McDonald's").

When was the last time you saw red-haired fast-food frontclown Ronald McDonald take a starring role on any McDonald’s advert, Happy Meal box or menu?

I usually try to keep my critiques to categories I’ve worked in, primarily because I think it’s irresponsible for me to comment on what works and what doesn’t when I have little basis for my assessment other than being a consumer. So I initially demurred when some folks have asked for my POV on AT&T’s new campaign, Rethink Possible.

McDonald's is going to change its logo in Germany, casting its iconographic golden arches against a green background to envoke its respect for the environment. I can't decide if the idea is irrelevant or insane. Or both.

McDonald’s is the world’s largest and fastest growing food service organisation. It is also a brand that attracts a lot of discussion and debate online. Not all of it positive.

This presentation from Heather Oldani, their Director of PR, is a great overview of how McDonald’s is using social media and online communities. From Twitter and Facebook to their own online communities.

by: Idris Mootee

Are we heading towards where all products are pretty much the same or all products will have some minimum level of differentiation to survive? Name me some products that doesn’t matter what the price or the brand is, the products are still the same? Water? Tomato puree? Sugar? Milk? Or eggs?

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

Revelers who were at the quadrennial branding bacchanal otherwise known as the Olympics are already waking up to what I'd expect are gold medal-winning hangovers.