Summarize In the case study, the three significant reasons that had caused the market issue of McDonald’s from 1990s to 2003s were lack of preparation before the expansion, underestimate the competition, and fail to recognize the consumer demands. First, McDonald’s aggressively and rapidly expanded their business oversea without preparation, which led them to a wrong direction and lost focus. In addition, all the new employees weren’t trained well enough thus caused the decrease in quality of customer service, their products, and the sanitation. Second, while McDonald’s was solving their problems after the expansion, many new competitors have emerged during the gap. Third, the change of customer tastes was also a big issue that they confronted, and their new products such as pizza, the Arch Deluxe, and deli sandwiches failed to connect with consumers. However, McDonald’s chief executive found out that they got distracted from the most important and also the basic thing: “hot, high-quality food at great value at the speed and convenience of McDonald’s.” Later in 2003, they came up a strategic effort called the “Plan to Win.” and the structure is still continuous been using in every restaurant today. The core concept of “Plane to win” is focus on how to improve on the company’s 5 Ps – people, product, promotions, price, and place. They allowed local restaurant to adapt with the different culture and environment such as providing various kinds of food to satisfy the local flavor. Moreover, they responded the health trend and removed “Super-Size“ option by offering salads and apple slices in Happy Meals to attract people who are healthy eater. McDonald’s also introduced the $1 menu, improved the drive-thru service, added new McCafe coffee line, launched a worldwide repackaging effort, and came up with several perfect slogan for their activities and finally all the effort they have done led them walked out the economic crisis.
Questions
1. What are McDonald’s core brand values? Have these changed over years?
Answer1: McDonald’s core brand value is “hot, high-quality food at a great value at the speed and convenience of McDonald’s”.
Answer2: No, these haven’t changed over years and McDonald’s still making effort to improve it such as introduced a new McCafe coffee line, launched a worldwide repackaging effort, improved the drive-thru service, and responded the health trend.
2. McDonald’s did very well during the recession in the late 2000s. With the economy turning around for the better, should McDonald’s change its strategy? Why or why not?
Answer1: Yes, they should change its strategy.
Answer2: it is necessary to assuming or considering that at some point in time, brand crises will arise for some reason. For example, if McDonald’s didn’t introduce the new coffee line and responded to the health trends, they might meet another brand crisis.
3. What risk do you feel McDonald’s will face going forward
Answer: The risk that McDonald’s will face is going to be market penetration. They have to keep their market share, moreover, they have to gaining competitors' customers such as “Jack In The Box”, “In And Out”, or another fast food restaurant that have same market segment with them.

Update Case Information The most significant update information about McDonald’s within ten years is definitely the slogan “I’m loving it”, it’s an international branding campaign created by an advertisement company “Heye & Partner”. This advertising campaign was McDonald’s first global advertisement where launched in Unterhaching, Germany, near Munich on September 2, 2003, using the German “ich liebe es” which means“I’m loving it”, and the English part star from Australia on September 21, 2013. McDonald’s has 14 different kinds of language on their package which includes English, Chinese, German, Arabic, French and almost all the language that on the earth. In addition, McDonald’s meet the first stage of their whole new image and slogan: “What we’re made of.” in 2008, and the concept of this promotion was to let consumers know that how their products are made and they also redesign their packaging to feature this slogan. Later in 2008, they changed their menu boards with warmer color and add more vivid photos to show their products on plates and drinks in glasses. From 2009 to 2010, they launched their new packaging worldwide. For McDonald’s stock price, Q4 EPS of $1.38, $0.05 better than analyst estimate of $1.33 and up 4% from last year, moreover, they still planning to invest about $3.4 billion for the expansion and reinvest for the existing location in 2013.

Recommendation For the recommendation, McDonald’s have to aware of the crisis they met fifteen years ago will come after them again since they announced that they will have more investment for expansion in 2013. McDonald’s must well prepare and training their new employees well enough before the expansion in order to prevent the consumers’ satisfaction for new restaurant will lower than the other competitors in the same area, which means they have to increase their quality control not only for their products but also on their training for new employees. At the same time, McDonald’s also have to decrease the mistakes that always made by new restaurants, such as the process of cooking is not fast enough, delivery service always take too much time and caused the food will not in the proper temperature. Moreover, it’s time for McDonald’s to increase the interior design, which means they have to considering about their “for here” area of their restaurant for their target audience. First, since the Wi-Fi is free for everyone who walked in, they have to design a linger area using some armchair or round table surrounding with sofa for people who want to take advantage of their FREE service. Second, they still need a space for customers who just want to enjoy their foods and relaxing with their friend or family, this area could be just like usual. Third, they really have to design a “Grab and GO” area such as Starbucks, this area can makes people who just want to “Grab and GO” and don’t want to go for the long line in “Drive Thru”, and also keep them away from the long line that is for “for here” order, or, this area can just put some tall counters and flat screen TV which obviously for lone diner.