McDonald's And "Total Brand Confusion" -- January 29, 2015

The McDonald's story is interesting. Slumping sales; slumping CEO.

Today this headline: McDonald's has 'total brand confusion': Sonnenfeld.

I didn't read the article, and probably won't.

I've been reading several books on Steve Jobs lately. I'm at Starbucks and the books are at home, so I can't reference the books directly, but that headline above reminded me of Steve Jobs ability to focus.

When Jobs came back to Apple, the company had no less than 20 different products -- and they were all 20 different versions of their computers. He had no idea how people could figure out what computer to buy.

Jobs "directed" that Apple would sell four computer models and that was it. The engineers, sales staff, everyone went nuts. Cutting product line from 20 to 4 was not going to work. (It did.) Apple even glued the computer cases so folks couldn't modify their own Apple computers (made a lot of geeks very, very unhappy, but Steve Jobs wasn't targeting geeks; his target was the best possible computer experience possible).

Steve Jobs also knew that he could take his best 20,000 hardware and software folks and have them working on four projects: iPod, iPad, smart phone, laptops. Or he could have his 20,000 folks working on one project: the cell phone. He put everything else on the back burner and made an insanely great iPhone. The iPad had to wait a year. (Or maybe it was the other way around, I can't remember, but the point is made.)

I spend a lot of time in McDonald's -- well, not a lot of time -- rather, I visit a lot of McDonald's whenever I travel cross-country. The experience is predictable; the coffee is great; the prices are incredible; and they have free wi-fi (just no outlets to charge one's mobile devices).

I hardly ever look at the McDonald's menu. I order a coffee and a small hamburger ($1 each). I used to add fries but I've learned I don't need them. When McDonald's introduced the dollar-menu, I was thrilled. A little variety and still a dollar. And that's the problem: how many folks are making their McDonald's - Burger King - Chik-fil-A choice based on price: These fast food restaurants are all inexpensive. If McDonald's didn;t offer the dollar-menu, I would be buying almost the same thing and would pay $3.50 instead of a dollar, and for the free-wi-fi, and otherwise predictable experience, and good coffee, I wouldn't mind.

In-N-Out: two hamburger choices, or thereabouts, and not much more when it comes to fries and drinks. Can't get any simpler.

The other problem with McDonald's: McDonald's is sort of like Samsung and the cheap cell phone market. Sure, Samsung can sell a lot of phones but the margin is slim; they are not making much (any?) profit on these phones. Apple made a strategic decision not to target a particular audience; Samsung appears to have made a strategic decision to target the low end of the market. McDonald's seems to have done the same thing: target the low end of the market.

Chik-fil-A and In-N-Out, on the other hand, appear that they do not target the low end of the market. I'm not sure they are even targeting a specific market.

Instead, Apple, Chik-fil-A, and In-N-Out seem to be focusing on the best product they can make and serving it in the best environment they can provide -- and not worry about whether they are targeting the high end, the middle, or the low end of the market. But McDonald's, it appears, has set its sights on attracting the low end of the market and I see it every time I visit McDonald's. Nine times out ten the McDonalds' staff is awesome, but 10% of the time, I run across McDonald employees whose values seem to be the same as the low end of the market they attract. That really never happens at In-N-Out or Chik-fil-A. Or even Wendy's although it's been a long time since I've been there (I don't know if they offer free wi-fi). I've never had a bad experience at Whataburger and I go there even knowing they don't have wi-fi. [Whataburger, by the way, offers barely more than one type of hamburger -- but they serve it 53,000 different ways to order.]

The one thing that turns me off about going into a McDonald's: my elitism. I don't like to be seen as part of their target audience -- the low end of the market. Actually, that's not quite true. I don't mind going in alone, but I really don't like to take anyone with me. And I suppose I really don't mind being seen as part of the low end of the market, but there are a lot of folks at McDonald's that are at the very low, low, low end of the market -- it's very elitist, but that's my problem. It shouldn't be McDonald's problem. But in some localities, it seems, McDonald's is barely one step above a "soup kitchen" from the Great Depression. With wi-fi.

Maybe I will go back and read that linked article about McDonald's and "total brand confusion."