MCDONALD'S
MARKET RESEARCH REPORT
The Most Preferred Burger on the McDonald's Menu, Depicted by Millennials and Adolescents on Social Media Platforms.
INTRODUCTION
In today’s world, consumers are empowered by social media as a means of sharing their brand stories or their personal brand-related experiences, with the world (Gensler et al., 2013; Singh and Sonnesburg, 2012). Using electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), consumers interact with each other about their involvement with brands and develop user-generated content (UGC) on discussion forums and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter (Muntinga et al., 2011; Kudeshia and Kumar, 2017; Rui et al., 2013). Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) agree that marketers consider these tweets or posts as credible information. Brands take this flood of messages as a means to analyze data, avoid inefficiencies and increase effectiveness (Anjaria and Guddeti, 2014; Fulgoni, 2018).
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Taking the case of McDonald’s, the biggest fast-food hamburger chain in the world, the brand has rightfully developed its sense of brand positioning in the fast food industry. Moreover, it has gained brand familiarity all over the world, so much, that everyone would be able to recognize its golden arches in an instant (Green, 2015). However, it hasn’t been the only burger franchise, especially in America. Facing tough competition from companies such as Burger King and Wendy’s, McDonald’s was successfully able to pull through ‘Burger Wars’ in the 1980’s (Schmid and Gombert, 2018).
In this market research report, I will be analyzing which burger on the McDonald’s menu is most preferred by millennials and adolescents as of what has been portrayed on social media platforms.
LITERATURE REVIEW
As per studies, McDonald’s started a success story with the launch of its very first and longest running global campaign in 2003, ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ (Graakjær, 2019). In fact, according to Rowley (2004), that was when the company reinforced its brand message and identity through the launch of its website - www.McDonalds.co.uk. While the ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ campaign promoted the enterprise’s values and social responsibility, and created online communities, the same cannot be said about its Twitter campaign ‘#McDStories’ which is possibly one of the biggest marketing disasters in 2012 (Kemp, 2012; Jain et al., 2015; Business Insider, 2012) due to the negative responses and online reviews from consumers.
The demographic that the online campaigns reach the most are adolescents and millennials. Evident from a study done by Batat (2008) and McMillan and Morrison (2006), young people represent the first generation born since the onset of the Internet, claiming themselves to the ‘early adopters’ of new technologies. Moreover, they have rapidly embraced the Internet and social media as a means of connecting with friends, acquaintances and quite literally, the world (Hundley and Shyles, 2010; Barcelos and Rossi, 2014). This confirms that the age group is most influenced by peers and is consistently engaged with brands on the internet (Hamilton et al., 2016; Duffett, 2017).
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In addition, millennials and adolescents, who are considered a viable target market for fast-food retailers, are highly persuaded by peers on social media to collect suggestions and reviews when making food-related decisions (Shamhuyenhanzva, 2016). Online consumer reviews are a type of eWOM, giving access to customers about the positive/negative comments on platforms like Instagram, allowing everyone to be a ‘foodie’ (Whitting et al., 2019). Perhaps what motivates them to post food pictures, according to Coary and Poor (2016), is to maintain a food blog, document a special creation, capture a special occasion, express positive feelings, as part of recommendations to other consumers, support employees or simply to help company make changes for the better (Whitting et al., 2019). Studies by Poor, Duhachek and Krishnan (2013) show that consumers are increasingly indulging in junk food to socially fit in or be accepted.
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While positive responses are well appreciated by these brands, negative responses don’t usually mean the worst for the brand. Companies can take these reviews into regard and take some time to understand online consumer behavior (Schivinski and Dabrowski, 2016). Scholars suggest that marketers should take to Twitter and Facebook to engage with consumers by informing them about promotional offers, customer service capabilities and update consumers with timely content in the form of photos, emails and messages or advertisements (Hamilton et al., 2016). Twitter UGC has the capability of building or shattering brand reputation, customer satisfaction and firm performance (Liu et al., 2017), and so it is essential to understand and predict customer demands (Chong et al., 2015).
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McDonald’s, as a burger joint, has had its ups and downs. In 1987, McDonald’s won the ‘Burger Wars’ when both its competitors, Burger King and Wendy’s went through a phase of loss (Schmid and Gombert, 2018). In 1997, it promoted its signature beef burger, Big Mac for 55 cents, however that lead them to quite a loss consider how big the burger sells out (Muller, 1997). Moreover, Botterill and Kline (2007) believe that most of the cultural cuisines were being wiped out with the introduction of the American Big Mac. Big Mac, along with the Quarter Pounder, are said to be people’s core favourites and those customers who weren’t aware of the Big Mac were claimed to be ‘out of place’, especially after the introduction of incentives such as the ‘Big Mac attack’ (Kottak, 1978; Crawford et al., 2015). Sources say that McDonald’s recently celebrated its 50th anniversary by selling its Big Macs for 99 cents (The Sun, 2020). In spite of that, through a lot of factors such as promotions and cultural differences, McDonald’s has had a lot of people going in for different tastes and choices.
RESEARCH QUESTION
What is the most preferred burger on the McDonald's menu, depicted by millennials and adolescents on social media platforms?
RATIONALE
The purpose of this research is to assist the fast food company, McDonald’s in promoting the main menu item, most preferred by adolescents and millennials, globally, giving them the ability to comprehend and expect customer needs and wants more accurately using qualitative approaches. Additionally, it gives an opportunity for the business to succeed on social media by maximizing their customer service potential through the right tone, language and content and maintaining a business-toconsumer dialogue (Ramsay, 2010; Ashley and Tuten, 2015), keeping both ends (brand and consumer) satisfied.
RESEARCH METHODS
I participated in conducting primary data collection of secondary data available online. A study to understand and analyze the most preferred burger from McDonald’s by adolescents and millennials would require an approach that catches McDonald’s consumers in their natural state, except online. While the data was organically extracted from social networking sites (Hox and Boeije, 2005), it was easy to see what people were doing, eating, saying and feeling without having to inform them of my research work. Primary data collection seems like an apt method for the purpose of this research as it gives me access to raw data that can be fully controlled and calculated by me. Moreover, since this research will be digging deeper in terms of recording consumer behavior, it would only be right to use information that has been lately published and collected in real time.
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The internet gives access to enhanced abilities to obtain and analyze data which is why it was a good opportunity for this research. More specifically, social networking sites are a wide area consisting of virtual documents that are subjected to analysis once found and recorded (Bryman, 2016). For this study, I took in account 90 posts/tweets found on Twitter because of its unprecedented volume and variability (McCormick et al., 2015), Instagram which provided access to more than 100 million new posts per day meaning there was more than enough data to analyze (Reece and Danforth, 2017) and finally, TikTok which is widely popular among adolescents, teens and individuals in their early twenties (Kumar et al., 2018).
I made use of content analysis as a field of study to code and analyze the data I collected. Content analysis is a commonly used method in communication and media research as it provides a systematic and quantitative approach (Allen, 2017). Moreover, this method has helped in processing information through a range of categories that will be discussed and compared (Kassarjian, 1977).
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The categories of data that I was analyzing, most importantly, included the burger the consumers ordered. Since McDonald’s modifies its menu to fit into the cultures of the nation they sell to, it was essential for me to judge based on the burgers in its core menu including, Big Mac, Cheeseburger and Quarter Pounder (Crawford et al., 2015). For the posts that did not contain either of the three, I categorized them under “others”. Since the research needs to be focused on young consumers, I had to categorize them under age groups, as considering posts by people of 40+ years would be irrelevant to my research. It was easy to locate youngsters as they have greater odds of being a McDonald’s consumer than the older generation (Harrington et al., 2017).
Since these posts act as eWOM or online reviews, they also happen to come along with sentiments towards the brand or its products. This eventually gives marketers the capability of learning the audience’s concerns and expectations (Erkan, 2015). Taking this into coding, these concerns and expectations are categorized under sentiment analysis. Sentiments from reviews are often classified under positive, neutral or negative (Karakaya and Barnes, 2010). This gave me an idea of whether the consumers were happy or disappointed with what was most ordered, ultimately, providing me with an answer to the research question.
FINDINGS
After conducting content analysis with the data I have acquired through primary research, I was able to land on a definite answer for this research topic. Amongst a collection and analysis of 30 Instagram posts, 30 TikTok videos and 30 tweets (overall 90), 48% went in for Big Mac, 14% opted for a classic cheeseburger, 10% ordered a Quarter Pounder and 28% of the consumers had orders of burgers available in limited regions, which aren’t part of McDonald’s core menu. Of the 48% that ordered a Big Mac, 81% of the consumers were of the 20-30 year age group.
The overall sentiments of consumers, towards the fast food company and its burgers, feature a majority of positive reactions (78%) with 13% neutral reactions and 9% negative feelings. Narrowing it down to a sentiment analysis of all those who ordered a Big Mac, 29 consumers (67%) were satisfied or happy with the burger. While a group of 11 consumers displayed no emotions towards the taste or look of the burger, 7% of the consumers were quite disappointed with their McDonald’s order.
While doing this research, I also happened to come across four McDonald’s consumers that tried to recreate the Big Mac at home during the COVID-19 quarantine.
DISCUSSION
My findings prove that the most preferred McDonald’s burger by adolescents and millennials as of what has been portrayed online is Big Mac. Out of a lot of 90 online reviews on all three social media platforms, about a third of the consumers depicted that they were happy with their Big Mac order of which, more than half of the consumers were ages 20-30 years. Linking this to literature, the research demonstrates exactly what Botterill and Kline (2007) said about Big Macs.
Patterns that were observed amidst these Big Mac posts were quite generic and repetitive. While some were happy with the taste or the burger, expressing it in the form of emojis, others were satisfied with the promotions and deals offered by McDonald’s that features the classic Big Mac. A lot of these promotions referred to the 50th anniversary of McDonald’s as talked about by The Sun (2020). Considering that this research was done during the COVID-19 lockdown, a lot of consumers uploaded old pictures of Big Mac that were, I’m assuming, stored on their phones. Their captions described how much they missed having that specific burger and how they were longing to have it some time soon. In fact, four potentially frequent Big Mac consumers tried to recreate the burger at home because they were “missing maccies” and were inspired to try their own. While none of these reactions suggest what makes this burger so significant from other McDonald’s burgers, it is necessary to compare, interpret and assume to conclude with a clear-cut answer.
While both Quarter Pounder and Cheeseburger have common ingredients – cheddar cheese, pickles, slivered onions, beef patties, ketchup and mustard – the Big Mac consists of two beef patties, chopped onions, pickles, lettuce, American cheddar and possibly the ingredient that does the trick – the Big Mac sauce (McDonald’s, 2020).
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Considering wider possibilities, this may not be the most reliable answer because the research was limited to less than a hundred posts. Moreover, there is a probability that the sentiments acquired were not factual. It is most certain that this issue can be solved through the use of primary methods like surveys, focus groups or interviews.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this research has shown that Big Mac is the most favored McDonald’s burger amongst adolescents and millennials on social media sites. This data can be utilized by the brand to head in the right direction in terms of online advertisements and frequent promotions. Considering that this research only covered 90 reactions it may not be accurate. This calls for wider research, possibly in acquiring information on what makes for the perfect burger according to teens and millennials on the internet.