Discussion Questions:
1) McDonalds has a mixed global marketing strategy that combines Globalization and the ability to act local. Globalization refers to developing a marketing strategy as if the world is a single entity and to sell the same product with same promotion, same packaging all over the world regardless of geographic, demographic, political, social and cultural differences. McDonald’s global marketing strategy refers globalization in many terms but also takes into consideration local tastes and expectancies, and creates value with its capability to act local when required; this strategy is called glocalization.
The company has a high level of standardization which creates effectivenes in production that decreases the price and time of service. The packaging, the core menu, logo, brandname, distribution strategy, positioning of the company, main idea of the advertisements, design of the stores, business model, taste of the food, desing of the kitchens and working conditions of the workers are same everywhere in the world. As a strategy the company keeps all these operations standardized in order to remain profitable and global. However there are cases where standardization becomes an obstacle and McDonalds needs to make adjustments in order to enter the local market and expand its market share. In these cases, considering local preferences; product localization is done, some local tastes could be added to the menus (although its menus vary from country to country its core product offering is consistent on a global basis), as a marketing localization the company can combine local expectations with core values of American McDonalds and reach the target demographic.
McDonals is a perfect example of : “Think global and act local”.
Although it is highly standardized, the fact that 70% of its stores are franchises, and 80 to 90% of its suppliers are local businesses