Individual Innovation Paper
McDonald’s Arch Deluxe

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Individual Innovation Paper: McDonald’s Arch Deluxe Analysis - Why It Failed
INTRODUCTION
McDonald’s has been in the hamburger business since the 1950’s and grown into a world-wide fast-food giant known for “Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value”. As the McDonald’s empire grew so did their menu, it adapted to the tastes of their customers. In 1996 McDonald’s launched the Arch Deluxe; their answer to what adults want to eat. The public did not agree with McDonalds and the product was not successful.
CAUSE OF PRODUCT FAILURE
McDonalds advertising tried to show that the new Arch Deluxe was fancier than their other menu items and overemphasized the how adult it
They advertised the heck out of it, using television commercials with kids not liking the hamburger their parents were eating and marketing it as a gourmet burger. McDonalds invested in advertising, did all the right things with test groups and marketing and the burger still failed.
CAUSE OF PRODUCT FAILURE So what went wrong? Doing an Ishikawa root cause analysis model there were a number of factors that played into creating the Arch Deluxe and a combination that caused the failure.
Materials McDonald’s Arch Deluxe
McDonald’s Arch Deluxe Environment

Good tasting Family friendly
Ingredients. fast food
560 Calories restaurant

Strong Marketing Had test groups
Reacting to thinking Had a chef create
They needed to create a fancy burger
Adult food options for adults Management Methods

With materials, the ingredients they chose for the Arch Deluxe were good and tasty but not fancy. The environment does not change when you add a new menu item, it’s still a family friendly fast food restaurant. The methods they used were good, lots of testing and the test group liked the burger. Management had a strong marketing campaign, spent a lot of money promoting an adult gourmet burger option. According to Bhasin (2011), “It’s been considered one of the most expensive product failures in McDonald’s history, primarily due to the $100 million marketing campaign that accompanied it.” I don’t