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Small
Business, BIG Marketing™
by Will
Dylan ©2007
Even
McDonald’s
Has a Market Position…
McDonald’s
is one of the most successful companies on the planet,
but it started out as a small business. They ultimately
achieved their growth and their success by focusing on
who they wanted to be - a family friendly, kid-oriented
fast food restaurant offering low cost meals that taste
great.
Only after
they decided who they wanted to be did they get started
on the “what” – they developed ads that targeted
kids, sold franchises in urban areas located close to
schools and family neighborhoods, and so on. (They also
included indoor playgrounds at many of their locations,
a dead giveaway that they are catering to children as
part of their marketing strategy.) All of these tactics
helped to communicate to the market who McDonald’s is
and what they stand for in the market.
To put it
into “marketing speak”, when McDonald’s decided to
be the family friendly low cost restaurant in the fast
food business, they were deciding on what market
position they wanted to own within the fast food market.
Perhaps the
best way to describe McDonald’s market position is to
illustrate all of the market positions they could have
gone after, but decided not to:
·
McDonald’s
could have been a fast food restaurant with better
quality food than all of their competitors, but at
slightly higher prices and that would take slightly
longer to prepare
·
They also
could have been the fast food restaurant with the widest
menu offering the most choice to their customers
·
Or, they
could have targeted the adult market instead of focusing
their marketing efforts on children and families
But they did
none of those things. They looked at the market and
decided that the best opportunity for their business was
in attracting the business of families with children –
and so they took up that “position” in the market.
Now bear in
mind, McDonald’s didn’t just wake up one day and
“decide” on their market position. They did plenty
of research on the market and identified the most
profitable market for their products, then refined their
marketing and operations to deliver on what their chosen
market would want.
Clearly,
their decision was a success for them. However, even
though McDonald’s dominates the fast food category,
there are plenty of alternative market positions
available to other businesses in that market.
Not
all Burger Joints Are Created Equally….
While you
might think that all burger places are the same, from a
marketing standpoint, they couldn’t be more different.
Burger King
has started to establish themselves as the choice of the
young adult market, notably among young males. Watch
their advertising – you don’t see nearly as many ads
featuring kids or families. Instead, their focus is on
the teenage crowd and up.
Burger King
is simply playing the market position game. Since
McDonald’s has the kids and families market wrapped
up, Burger King took aim at a different part of the
market, and has found success by tailoring their menu
and marketing to a different market segment. They are
attempting to secure the position of “choice of teens
and young men”.
Wendy’s
has taken up a position in another part of the market,
targeting adults. Notice their menu is quite different
than that of Burger King or McDonald’s. Wendy’s
offers substitutions on their menu to accommodate health
conscious eaters. You can have a baked potato instead of
fries, for example. And you can purchase a lunch sized
salad if you want to skip the burger altogether. (Unlike
McDonald’s where they might grudgingly give you a
salad instead of fries, Wendy’s actively promotes
their healthy choices.) Their market position is clear:
healthier fast food.
Three
companies, all in the “fast-food” business, but all
with different market positions and different target
audiences.
Continue
>>
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