Unit 3: Introduction to Marketing M1
Amendment

Compare the effectiveness of the use of the marketing mix by both McDonalds and Prêt A Manger, including:

a) How they meet the expectations of the target customer

The expectations of McDonald’s customers are to receive a fast, efficient service for an ‘on the go’ lifestyle. They want a clear menu with many meal deals already to go for a quicker exchange at the till. They expect the food to be cheap in price and also filling to satisfy their hunger. Prêt’s customer’s expectations are quite different as they expect to receive a welcoming environment where each customer is valued; this means that Prêt wants to keep them coming back unlike McDonalds which is a ‘grab and go’ restaurant. The staff are trained to a high standard and enjoy their job so that the happy energy is transferred to customers when they come in. The customers of Prêt also expect fresh food made from scratch every day with no preservatives or additives added which is one of Prêt’s main policies. Going back to the expectation of Pret being a welcoming place, the design of all the stores comes into play and they try and make it as casual and relaxing as possible with sofas, lighting and appropriate posters.

b) How the elements of the marketing mix are integrated and how they relate to each other.

McDonalds uses the marketing mix in their operations a lot. They start with designing a Product, for example the Big Mac. For this product to sell well they need to look at the Place they are going to be selling in, if it is a high end area then not many people will be buying burgers as it is seen to be for the lower class. Also if it was to be sold in a different country McDonalds would have to make sure that the people there are allowed to eat that kind of meat (beef). Leading on from the Place McDonalds will then have to look at the Physical Evidence of what they offer. This is the surroundings, the furniture, the packaging or anything you can physically touch. This decision of what Physical Evidence to have will go hand in hand with the Place that they chose and will be dependent on what types of people live there. If they are upper class they will be expecting spacious layouts with elegant wallpaper and posters or if it was a rundown area then they wouldn’t care as much as to what the walls looked like. After analysing the Physical Evidence McDonalds then look at the people who they have chosen as their customers, they find out information about them by doing primary research or sometimes secondary research off of government data. This helps them structure the next few P’s and the first of them is Price. The data collected by McDonalds is then used to calculate the price of the products in store, if the research shows that the people enjoy fast food and like to eat on the go then they could maybe up their prices a little but if the research shows that local people don’t actually enjoy fast food then they could decrease the price to encourage purchase. Another way McDonalds encourage their customers to purchase their products is to use Promotion; this is linked with price, product and place. This is linked because if McDonalds was located near a high student populated area they would have to adapt that to their choice of promotions, so maybe a student discount or what they do in Welwyn is a free mcflurry with every meal (providing you show student ID). Promoting their products is when they offer a ‘buy one get one free’ or a ‘hamburgers half price’ on the condition you buy a product in store, this way McDonalds can sell more and still make a small profit off of the extra promoted products sold. The final P from the marketing mix used in McDonalds is Process, this is important especially for McDonalds as they are renown for their fast order system. The process is how quickly the food ordered gets to the customer. Having a slow process can set customers off of coming back to the store again as the wait