How McDonald’s made marketing its centre for growth
Over the past five years, McDonald’s has been on a mission to establish a “creative excellence and effectiveness culture”, which has allowed it to prove the value of marketing and show how brand building contributes to business success.
McDonald’s CEO has hailed marketing a key “driver of growth” for the business, asserting that the strength of the brand is intrinsically linked to the success of the overall company.
Indeed, marketing is now a core pillar of the fast food giant’s long-term business strategy, ‘Accelerating the Arches’. But it hasn’t always been this way. Over the past five years McDonald’s has been on a mission to build a culture of creative excellence and prove the value of marketing. In doing so the marketing leadership team has been able to shine a light on the importance of brand building, linking it directly to business success and thereby elevating the role of marketing.
It began with the realisation that McDonald’s had lost its way, according to Joan Colletta, senior director, marketing transformation and a member of the global brand leadership team at McDonald’s.
“I always say we were an icon brand that forgot we were an icon,” she tells Marketing Week. “We were focused just on short-term promotions, and were really transactional in terms of our marketing.”
