1.

Introduction
It is likely that most children in the world are fond of fast food and the market leader in the fast
food industry would obviously McDonald’s. At the end of January 2019, McDonald’s has been
launching cheesy bacon fries in order to boost the number of customers visiting the chain. The
paper is to propose a plan of integrated marketing communications to enhance position of the
newly launching product in the market. Some situational analysis would be conducted to
supplement more information for the plan as well as the detailed plan including objectives, target
audience and positioning, budget, media timeline, and campaign evaluation would be further
examined in the paper.
2. An overview of the company
Ray Kroc, in 1954, came to visit a small but successful restaurant which was operated by the
siblings Dick and Mac McDonald who founded the restaurant in 1940 in San Bernardino,
California. Kroc was impressed by high quality and quick service of the restaurant with the main
menu of burgers, fries and beverages. At that time, the siblings had intention to franchise this brand
and Kroc seized this opportunity. Kroc founded McDonald System, Inc. in 1955, which is the
predecessor of the today McDonald’s Corporation. During the operation of McDonald’s, Kroc
implemented his unique philosophy that encouraged both franchisees and suppliers to work not
for McDonald’s but for themselves, together with McDonald’s (Mcdonalds.com, 2019).
The fact remains that McDonald’s is well known as the market leader in fast food industry for
many years. The growth of fast food has been named after the organization as “McDonaldisation”.
McDonald’s opened almost forty thousand restaurants all over the world in 2018, in which the
business operated almost seven thousand establishments in international market
(www.statista.com, 2019). In Australia, the fast food burger shop has witnessed an annual growth
for the period from 2014 to 2019 of 4.7% with the key player in the market is McDonald’s
(Ibisworld.com.au, 2019). Currently, Mc Donald’s has 981 outlets across Australia and has
intention to expand this market larger over the next three years (Boreham, 2019). The market
leader is proved through a survey during the period from April 2017 to March 2018 which showed
the largest number of Australians (52.7%) selected McDonald’s as the top quick service restaurant
eat at or have take away, followed by KFC and Subway with amount of 40.8% and 30.8%
respectively (Roy Morgan, 2019).
Over years, McDonald’s is always on the top the most valuable global brands. In the first stage of
development, McDonald’s was famous for burgers and fries which is the tradition of fast food.
Besides, the business also created other brand of McCafe which offers customers café-quality
frappes and desserts. It would be said that McDonald’s provides customers a wide range of
products with high quality and fresh ingredients for the objectives of offering the healthiest fast
food. McDonald’s take a responsibility of committing to quality, offering real beef, freshly cracked
egg, fish filets from sustainably-sourced Alaska Pollock or even real buttermilk. Customers is
likely to find dairy from 1% low fat milk jugs or fat free chocolate milk jugs, fruit and yogurt
parfait, whole grains, vegetables, eggs, chicken, fish, beef, potatoes and even coffee in
McDonald’s. Apart from other fast food brands, McDonald’s has a dietitian and nutritionist team
to ensure health factor in its menu (Mcdonalds.com, 2019).
It is undeniable that McDonald’s aims to a wide range of customers from 6 to 45 years old, in both
domestic and international markets, and both urban and rural areas with gender of females and
males. Customers would be families with children, newly married couples not having children yet,
employees or university students who enjoy the convenience of food on the go for their busy lives.
Like other fast food competitors, McDonald’s targets customers with low and middle income in
the society who prefer meals with low cost and time efficiency.
3. Situational analysis
The newly launching product of Cheesy Bacon Fries at the end of this January would target to
encourage customers to consider purchasing loaded fries as a snack and to boost the number of
visitors to the chain. In fact, loaded fries have been a hot dish in the fast industry recently. When
the cheesy bacon fries has been debuted, a comparison between McDonald’s new cheesy bacon
fries to Wendy’s Baconator fries. This is a controversial discussion of the winner in this loaded
bacon fries battle. On the one hand, many suppose even though the price of a basket of cheesy
bacon fries is higher than Wendy’s version, the business is the top contender for straight cut french
fries and now the company adds on more bacon and cheese, which is consider a booming for the
menu (Delish, 2019). On the other hand, the opposites vote for Wendy’s version since this version
is perfectly cooked compared to McDonald’s version (Business Insider, 2019). Notwithstanding,
the version of cheesy bacon fries is likely a star to boost more sales of McDonald’s this summer.
When it comes to fast food, it is undeniable that many people take a negative side due to health
concerns. Recently, the trend of healthy and green lifestyle has been an emerging global trend
attracting various kinds of age in the society. People are more likely to focus on healthy products
rather than fast food. As a result, over the past two decades, people have supposed that McDonalds
has to take responsibility of obesity epidemic. Even though the business has promoted objective
of caring about well-being of customers and adding more vegetables into the menu, the concern of
unhealthy food and obesity still remains a huge problem in fast food industry. Apart from that, as
consequence of changing into green lifestyle, customer preference would, without doubt, changes
in the near future. The social trend of sustainable development has driven citizen into consuming
products which are not only green for people’s health but also green for the environment. The fact
remains that the fast food industry has been wasted the largest number of plastic products, which
has a catastrophic effects for the environment (Financial Post, 2019). Therefore, it could be
imaginable that there will be a decrease in sales if the business remains to use plastic-related
products. According to global fast food plastic survey, McDonald’s with over 37,00 stores all over
the world does not commit to ban plastic bag and does have plan for several countries such as
Indoneisa, Ireland, Taiwan, UK and Australia to reduce plastic straw (Plastic Pollution Coalition,
2019).
Those situations could be draw a future which is not as good as the last few decades with slower
market expansion since customer preferences have changed much in line the sustainable
development and fast food would be no longer a trend in the society. This consequence will happen
not only in Australia market but also the international market.
Reference
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