Mcdonalds V. Wendy's

McDonalds and Wendy's

1. Think about demographic and sociocultural trends and changes and explain how each organization's interpretation of these trends and changes has affected its choice of strategy?

McDonald's has recently had to dramatically change their marketing strategy due to social pressures. On Tuesday Nov 14, 2006 it, along with 9 other companies that make up about 2/3 of child-targeted food and drink marketing agreed to Ð''self-regulate' their advertising in response to health trends among children. According to Mulvihill (2006) "Half their ads will focus on foods that qualify as healthy or on nutrition and exercise issues."

Wendy's OTOH, is trying to rebuild their marketing strategy after the death of Ð''Dave' and the failed "burger guy" campaign. According to Kerrii Anderson, Wendy's interim Chief Executive Officer and President, "Our marketing strategy is revitalizing the Wendy's brand as we clarify our positioning with customers, improve our advertising messages and introduce new products." (Wendy's Intl., 2006) To this end they have been introducing new and more specialized items, such as:

-- Frescata(TM) deli sandwiches, which feature high-quality deli meats, fresh toppings and par-baked artisan bread

-- A 99-cent crispy chicken sandwich, which is the Company's latest addition to its Super Value Menu(R)

-- Three-tier combos, which adds a third combo option to the menu and replaces the Biggie(R) and Great Biggie(R) with small, medium and large sizes

-- Wendy's Kids' Meal(R) Choices, featuring two nutritious Turkey and Cheese and Ham and Cheese sandwiches

-- A new Frescata Italiana, which is the fifth Frescata sandwich, containing sun-dried tomato, vinaigrette dressing, roasted red peppers, natural Swiss cheese, lean black forest ham, real Genoa salami and Romaine lettuce on freshly baked artisan bread

-- A vanilla Frosty(TM)

The Company is also offering several hamburgers exclusively in certain regions, such as the Carolina Classic (North and South Carolina) and the Brutus Buckeye Burger (central Ohio).

In addition, Wendy's announced last week that it is now cooking with oil that has zero grams of fat per serving at its 6,000 U.S. restaurants. With the move, Wendy's became the first major quick-service restaurant chain to switch to non-hydrogenated cooking oil for its French fries and chicken products.(Wendy's Intl., 2006)

2. Is their strategy affected by the amount of advertising they do on television and the internet?

Both of these chains have massive advertising budgets, and their market saturation reflects that. One can scarcely turn on prime time television programming without seeing multiple advertisements for both organizations. Anecdotally I note that the advertising for either chain no longer seems to be on nick.com, a site my young son frequents regularly. Perhaps the tide is changing?

3. Which organization do you think is currently positioned better and why?

As much as I prefer the food at Wendy's, I would rather invest in McDonalds. They