McDonalds and its various promotional strategies

 McDonald’s creates awareness of their products in various ways, including advertising, public relations, direct marketing, sales promotion, and personal selling. For instance, a fast food place like Mcdonald's may create awareness of its products through advertising campaigns on television, billboards, magazines, or social media platforms. They may also use direct marketing methods like email marketing, SMS marketing, or targeted online ads to reach potential customers. Additionally, companies may employ sales promotions like discounts, loyalty programs, or free samples to incentivize customers to purchase their products. For example, McDonald's often offers coupons or deals on their menu items to attract customers and boost sales. Overall, the company may use a combination of these promotional strategies to create awareness of its products and reach its target customers effectively.

McDonald’s may use various promotional strategies to encourage consumers to try its product, depending on the type of product and the target audience. Some common strategies include offering free samples or trials, discounts, coupons, referral programs, loyalty programs, and influencer marketing. For example, if the product is a beauty product, the company may offer free samples or trials to customers who visit their stores or purchase other products. They may also collaborate with beauty influencers on social media platforms to showcase their products and offer discounts or promo codes to their followers. Product packaging: The product packaging may contain information about the product, including its features, ingredients, and calories. In-store displays: The company may use in-store displays to showcase the product and provide information about its features and benefits. Product demonstrations: The company may offer product demonstrations in-store or at events to showcase the product and provide customers with an opportunity to ask questions. Online platforms: The company may use its website, social media platforms, and online ads to provide information about the product, including its features, benefits, and customer reviews. Customer service: The company may offer customer service support through various channels, such as phone, email, or live chat, to answer any questions customers may have about the product. Loyalty programs: The company may offer loyalty programs that provide customers with rewards, such as discounts, free products, or exclusive offers, based on their level of engagement with the brand. Personalized offers: The company may offer personalized offers and recommendations to customers based on their purchase history and preferences. Excellent customer service: The company may prioritize providing excellent customer service by promptly responding to customer inquiries, resolving issues, and providing helpful information about the product. Consistent quality: The company may ensure consistent quality in its products to maintain customer satisfaction and trust.

Community engagement: The company may engage with its customers through social media, events, or other channels to build a community around the brand and create a sense of loyalty among its customers. Bundling: The company may offer bundle deals, where customers can purchase multiple products together at a discounted price, encouraging them to buy more. Upselling and cross-selling: The company may use upselling and cross-selling techniques, where customers are encouraged to purchase complementary products or upgraded versions of the product they are interested in. Limited-time offers: The company may offer limited-time offers, such as discounts or free gifts, to create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to make a purchase. Referral programs: The company may offer referral programs, where customers are rewarded for referring their friends and family to the brand, encouraging them to spread the word and potentially purchase more products. Product education: The company may educate customers about the various ways they can use the product, highlighting its versatility and encouraging them to use it more frequently. Influencer marketing: The company may collaborate with social media influencers who have a large following to promote their product and reach a wider audience. Sponsorship: The company may sponsor events or organizations that align with its brand values to increase exposure and attract new customers.

Sales promotions: The company may use sales promotions, such as discounts, coupons, and buy-one-get-one-free offers, to attract new customers and encourage them to try their product.

Overall, all these companies such as Mcdonalds always try to find the best possible strategies which can help in increasing their sales and customer loyalty. 

 

Understanding media through the lens of the Moderate Effects Era

It is unarguable that the media plays a vital role in our society; of not only informing people but also of being a watch-dog and keeping certain elements in-line. However, the media today exists on a very broad spectrum and with the rise of fake news and yellow journalism media can used as much as a tool to misguide and mislead people as it can be used as a source of providing information, knowledge and shaping perceptions.

Regarding the theories, it has come to our conclusion as a collective group that they all provide a meaningful point-of-view to interpret media but not all of them look at it accurately.

When talking about McLuhan’s book: Understanding Media and McLuhan’s views about media in general you can’t help but feel they are outdated especially when looking at media with a more modern context. For instance, one of the main themes of the book is that: “media, not the content that they carry, should be the focus of study”. Whereas, in reality media today is very much defined by the content it publishes or airs. The book is also filled with certain contradictory statements. Such as McLuhan saying that media can change and re-shape perceptions while also calling it a light with no substance.

The Agenda setting theory by McCombs and Donald Shaw is actually a more accurate way of looking at media. Because the media does set the public agenda and plays a role in telling people what to think about. And this is something that is visible by the hot-topics and current events that the media focuses on and also the level of focus they give to each respective topic.

The knowledge gap analysis is a much different interpretation of media but one that is unfortunately, very true and very relevant throughout the world, especially in our society. It is a fact of life that the privileged will always be the ones with more knowledge compared to the less privileged. And in a multi-cultural society such as Pakistan where people have such massive difference of opinion in the way people perceive events therefore, there will always be a conflict of views which would in-turn prevent the homogeneity of information. Similarly, the ones with the most power will manipulate the media to appease their self-interests rather than using the media as an instrument for the betterment of society.

Book Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Reluctant Fundamentalist begins in a café in Lahore. A bearded Pakistani professor is in the company of an American man, he takes a sip of tea and begins to tell the American his life story and how he arrived at this fateful meeting. Flashback to the past and that same man, Changez Khan is hungry and driven young man committed to achieving the American dream in the United States. Fresh out of Princeton he gets a job with a hotshot valuation firm and quickly finds himself climbing the corporate ladder. However, when the tragedy of 9/11 strikes Changez finds himself becoming more defensive about his cultural identity in post 9/11 America.

Very few books have that unique ability to not only compel the reader but also move him and make him truly feel for the characters and the story. Mohsin Hamid’s gripping and mesmerizing ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ is such book and as soon as I started reading it, I found it very difficult to put it down until I had read the very last page. I suppose the greatest thing about this book for me is how it seamlessly blends the somewhat familiar rise and fall story with the 9/11 tragedy and in the process tells both a heartbreaking and utterly riveting story. Mohsin Hamid’s eloquent writing is really what makes this book what it is in my opinion. The story he aims to tell is undeniably ambitious but his grasp on character, story and plot is so tight, his writing, so fluent, that he never lets anything feel meandering or even the slightest bit dull. It truly is executed to perfection.

And another reason why I loved this book was because the story it tells it not only a timely one but also one that many Pakistanis and Muslims, for that matter can relate to. There’s no question that Muslims suffered greatly in the wake of the September 11 events, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist tells that story on a broadened canvas through the eyes of a Muslim man who sees just about everything slipping from his hands. There’s a sense of hope in Mohsin Hamid’s novel, a sense of hope always represented by the protagonist at various points in the story, but there’s also this really tragic undercurrent to the entire thing that makes this book both a heartfelt and profound piece of work. I found The Reluctant Fundamentalist to be a stirring and affecting novel which I would greatly recommend.

Enron's corporate culture is a cautionary tale for today's tech-savvy companies

In the case of Enron, we saw the weakness of human beings. The executives of Enron were very and highly qualified people, but they destroyed the fortune they built in 16 years and also hurt many investors. The fundamental cause of this disaster is that they lack the idea of the business ethic and whenever the executives of Enron encountered ethical dilemmas, they chose the wrong way.
The example of Enron is perhaps one of the best examples of greed and corruption in the corporate world and why having a good moral conscience aswell as a good understanding of business ethics is necessary to succeed if one is to succeed in the business world.

Enron’s corporate culture contributed significantly to the ethical scandal. Enron emphasized a culture of competition and getting financial goals at all costs, even if that meant cutting corners. They created a competitive environment by instituting a rating system which required that 20 percent of all the employees had to be rated as below requirements every year and then were encouraged to leave Enron. Although this rating system was created so employees would be encouraged employees to work harder it ended up in-turn creating a culture of deception.

Since employees were nervous about losing their jobs, they only focused on how to make their performances look good. They ignored the ethical standards, and only focused on the achievement of their financial goal. After a few employees began cheating on their works and covering up their errors and mistakes. This caused others to do the same as this was the only way to get ahead. Gradually, no one felt shame about cheating because they had no other choices and all their co-workers surrounding them were cheating.

Additionally, the culture of Enron emphasized too much on the financial goals. The person who can achieve the budget numbers would be the hero of the company. Both executives and most of employees focused on making profits for themselves through making good financial numbers instead of a real increase of the company’s economic value. Enron also was concerned less about the needs, values, desires and also the well-being of the employees. From the ethical aspect, employers should respond to their employees and keep the goal of benefiting them. In such a company, ethical standards were just for show. No one followed them.

Employees in Enron were pressured to work blindly, keep silent, protect their own short-term interests, and try to achieve their goals even if it was an obvious cheat.

Creating own platforms for expressing talents

In this world everyone has a desire of being famous with the mental need of being recognized or positively followed by people. This need is created by our surrounding because we follow people who are being followed. However, people are being followed or like by their characteristics and ability to do something different and specifically amazing. Every person varies from each other but is special and unique in different means of performing different tasks. People possess multiple intelligence, some perform some unique things which no one can and some can do the things which everyone can in a way which makes it looks completely as a new subject. The problem is that the entry in showing talent is easy through multiple ways in social media and different applications such as Tik Tok etc, but excelling is a barrier as entering in to an industry of the interested field is really not possible without not being in a position in the scratch.

This is the popular trend in the society all over the globe that people have started communicating themselves in the digital market through making their own pages/videos, V logs, blogs and though many other ways which is easily expressed with the context of their talent and intelligence. This has enhanced people’s confidence level through creating a meaning of their lives that they are capable to do something out of themselves. People are excelling in entertaining people by delivering their perspectives and being famous. Let’s take an example of many people who such as Danish Ali, Bekar Vines, Junaid Akram etc. These people have positioned themselves in the minds of the people, some have become cult followers of them and believe what they say.

So it is all about passion, faith, belief and motivation in yourself which triggers you in achieving the positions you desire. Working smart is some aspect which should be kept in mind, but success is derived from a specific period of time in which hard efforts is on which you can count on. Start from a small scale following your passion, and from all of a sudden steps would be cemented automatically which will incline your path towards your terminal goals. Don’t forget your dreams, if no one clears a path for you, so you can always create your own way out.

Written by Farasat Khan

The dark-side of digital marketing - Part 6

One of the most shocking revelations that came to light this year was Facebook’s involvement with Cambridge Analytica, a data firm which involved the two companies collaborating together to harvest user data for millions of Facebook users and then use that data to manipulate advertising. Facebook were reportedly paid money by a number of organizations including the campaign to elect Donald Trump as President of the United States and what they would do is that based on the data of a particular they would manipulate advertising on things that a particular user might not necessarily like, with things they would find favorable according to his Facebook profile. 

For example, if a person liked cats but didn’t necessarily like Donald Trump, he would see ads where Trump would be holding a cat and petting it. All this was done to manipulate the perception of a user. And experts say this data-mining had a huge hand in influencing the U.S election in 2016.

David C. Edelman talks about how the very idea of branding is bound to shift in the new age and privacy of users will be violated whether they like it or not and whether they know about it or not. The best way to avoid the dark-side on digital marketing is to be vigilant in regards to what you see and agree to online. Because this was one of the very reasons Facebook’s actions were deemed unethical rather than illegal, because everyone had agreed to it.

These revelations all serve as eye-opening warnings into the level at which the internet has taken control of our lives. While it possesses many virtues particularly when it comes to advancing the field of marketing, it also possesses many dark corners that need to be navigated with utmost caution

Creativity is still important in marketing - Part 5

Some people underestimate the value of creativity these days but the fact of the matter is that creativity is as important as ever. In fact if anything, it has become even more important in the new age of digital marketing because for an ad to truly stand-out in the large crowd that is the world-wide web, there has to be something unique and creative that garbs the customer’s attention. And if you look at companies like; Yelp, JetBlue Airways, MasterCard and Airbnb, all of them have launched and successfully run digital marketing campaigns based on one singular creative idea. Because good marketing is not just about creativity but also about finding a way to channel that creativity into a singular vision and giving it a pin-point sense of focus. JetBlue Airways for example launched a marketing campaign where they promoted the idea of excellent customer service and convenience for customers. 

They put this very idea into practice by answering all of their customers’ queries on Twitter whether they are related to booking of flights or just simple queries regarding seats. This allowed them to have a significant social-media presence and appeal particularly to the minds of the adolescents who are always looking for the easiest and simplest solutions. This also saves passengers the hassles of going to the website to solve their problems. Airbnb on the other hand used digital-marketing to rebrand their image from what is essentially a crowd-sourced hotel service to an application that allows people to see the world in a manner that is also economical on their wallet. The article Contextual Marketing by D. Kenny, J.F Marshall examines how these companies have all stood out by giving context to their uniqueness and creativity.

Creativity is often defined as divergent thinking and to be a successful marketer your mind has to be going and developing in different directions to truly make an impact. It is hardly important whether you’re advertising on billboards or smartphones when it comes to creativity. Marketing guru David C. Edelman consistently talks about the importance of creativity in his article and how he feels it is a force that will continue to influence marketing for generations to come.