Introduction
Apart from producing products and services that measure up to the needs, tastes, and preferences of customers, organisations must ensure that their products and services reach the target persons in the right place and at the right time (Kolandai-Matchett 2009, p.113). For this reason, it is important for an organisation to design a brand campaign, which captures the target market.
A brand campaign embraces “a series of advertising messages that share a single idea, which makes up an integrated marketing communication (IMC)” (Jackson 2005, p.13). An appropriate promotional campaign must be engineered so that it is able to capture a variety of media. The main themes of the proportional campaign must be adaptable to different media.
In this extent, Gronroos (1999) reckons, “campaign themes are usually developed with the intention of being used for a substantial period though many of them are short-lived due to factors such as being ineffective” (p.68).
Based on this argument, this paper investigates the appropriateness and effectiveness of the ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ campaign that was introduced first by McDonalds in India in 2011. The aim of this campaign was to present McDonalds’ McSpicy range of products as meeting the needs, tastes, and preferences of the youth in India.
Campaign Objectives
McDonalds first made its presence in India in 1996. Before the launch of the organisation, it invested heavily on the development of cold chain branded to deliver good quality and fresh products to its consumers. This strategy ensured that the company acquired a market share in the rapidly rising market for fast service products.
Since 1990, the number of people opting to eat out had been increasing in India following economic reforms made during the time. The reforms implied that the disposal income among the people especially the youths was on the hike resulting in increased demand for fast foods.
Consequently, over the last decade, McDonalds has a central objective of becoming the number one preferred fast food centre in India in the effort to ensure that it has the biggest share of this rapidly growing market. This objective truncated into the launch of the McSpicy range of products and consequently ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ brand campaign in 2011.
Target Audience for the Campaign
Every marketing campaign must have a specific target audience. In case of ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ brand campaign, the main target audience was the people impacted positively by the economic reforms in India. The reforms had profound impacts on the consumption patterns especially among the youths.
However, particular focus was on the local residents. In this extent, McDonalds maintained that its main objectives in India were to introduce a product or a group of products that would precisely meet the locals’ tastes.
Although McDonalds perceived the campaign would yield immense success, competition from rivals was enormous to the extent that the company had to work on specific target audience for its new marketing campaign. This specific audience was the young people.
To capture this group of people, the company through ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ campaign presented its McSpicy range of products as youthful and hence having the ability to satisfy the needs of the youths.
However, there was a major challenge since the rivals also targeted the same target audience with their marketing campaigns by focusing on cheap menus and or branding their products to cater for the vegetarians in India.
Promotional tools used in the campaign
Sales promotion as a technique was used in the ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ brand campaign since the Indian market for fast food is competitive. Additionally, the development of social media as a means of increasing the effectiveness coupled with efficiency of market targeting made sales promotion much easier.
The main aim of using sales promotion in the ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ brand campaign was to create and maintain desire and interest in the McDonalds McSpicy range of products among the target group.
Public relations aspect also forms one of the integral tools for success of any promotional strategy through “establishing and enhancing the positive image of organisations’ products among various publics” (Kilbourne 2004, p.108).
At McDonalds India, public relations were deployed to promote McSpicy’ range of products since the activities of PR could be designed to focus on specific and specialised target group-youths. The strategy works well when an appropriate media is chosen. For the case of ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ brand campaign, social media was chosen as the most preferred media for building the specialised public relations.
The main purpose for advertising as another tool in the ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ campaign was to persuade, remind, and inform the target audience about the McSpicy range of products. The budget decision was arrived at by considering the intensity of rivalry, competition, and the India consumer base and market potential.
Direct marketing is yet another strategy. Within the outlets of the McDonald’s stores in India, ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ brand campaign was also implemented through marketing directly to customers through the provision of various menu choices.
In case a customer doubts or does not have ample information about what a particular menu contains, sales teams of the company are deployed to help them out. This gesture not only creates customer confidence for the products but also increases chances of a repeated sale.
Media used in the campaign
After deriving an appropriate brand marketing campaign, media for the campaign is selected based on a number of factors including the extent and the nature of the target market, the size of the target market, and the most preferred media by the target audience. For McDonalds, with its ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ campaign, media chosen included:
- Social media whose examples include social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, and MySpace among others
- Print media whose examples include newspaper and magazines
- Direct communication with the customers whose examples include direct sales to customers
- Television
- Radio
Suitability of the promotional tools and media used in the campaign
McDonalds ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ campaign is executed through a variety of media and through various promotional tools as discussed above. The campaign proved highly effective after reaching an initial target population of 250, 000 people in India alone.
Opposed to the former campaigns, as Management Case Studies note, “McDonald used social media like social networking sites and messenger services extensively for the new campaign” (2012, Para.2). Later, the campaign was adapted to make use of other media such as outdoor, television, online promotions, and radio among others.
From the dimension of the customers, the campaign was received with mixed reactions. In this extent, Management Case Studies reckon, “while some customers said that the campaign met the tastes and preferences of the customers, others said that there was disconnect between the new McSpicy menu and the core message of the campaign” (2012, Para.3).
Given the need for continued maintenance of desire and the interest of the customers targeted by the campaign, the question of sustainability of the promotion tools and the media deployed is significant because brand promotional tools need to capture the attention of the target persons for a long time (Kolandai-Matchett 2009, p.119).
The sustainability of the media used in the McDonalds’ ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ campaign is akin to the characteristics of a particular media choice. Radio is limited to audio (Earthprint Publishing 2007). Hence, only audio promotions can be sustained.
Where radio is used as the media for advertisement, McDonalds can only succeed in capturing the interest of the target group customers if the promotional messages carried by the audio have the capacity to elicit vivid imageries about the products offered in the minds of the potential customers.
Arguably, radio as a media platform for the McDonalds’ ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ campaign is sustainable since “high imagery ads that elicit visual images in the minds of listeners show positive effects on attitude toward the brand and purchase intention” (Bolls & Muehling 2007, p.37).
The only main challenges rest on the selection of words, which would evoke the customer’s desire for the products. Presentation of McSpicy range of products as meeting the local tastes and preferences of the target population is a major milestone towards resolution of this challenge.
The target groups of the McDonalds’ ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ campaign are the youths. Although social media was first mainly utilised to reach out for them, print media has proved to be yet a sustainable mode for capturing the desire and interest of the target audience.
Gronroos’ (1999) findings that advertising in the local newspaper publication and magazines is a successful means of reaching for a larger group of people especially where the target group is educated (p.71) inform this argument.
Consequently, ads in the newspapers and other types of print media are sustainable ways of promoting lifestyles of the youth and their association with the McDonalds’ McSpicy range of products not only in India but also in other nations where such a campaign is put in place.
The discussion on the sustainability of radio and print media in attracting and retaining the desires and the interest of the target group of the McDonalds’ McSpicy range of products is worth noting.
It implies that, to succeed in placing the products and services offered by an organisation, it is crucial to induce a strong participation of the target customers in the learning of the experiences of the products and services offered. Television is an essential media for facilitating the realisation of this concern (Kilbourne 2004, p.113).
For this reason, according to Office for Official Publications of the European Communities (2009), television stands out across the globe as the most dominant advertisement media in the developed and developing nations.
This preference is akin to its effectiveness in inducing “‘learning without involvement’, which means that the consumer takes up the information even without being interested at first” (Krugman 2000, p.353).
Consequently, television is an impeccable tool for sustained ability to reach out for increasingly number of potential consumers of McDonalds McSpicy range of product both within and without India.
Scholarly research on the effectiveness and efficacy of various advertisement media articulates the effectiveness of brand placement promotion strategies through a myriad of media alternatives to the coverage range of a particular media (Edwards 2011, p.4). This argument means that both scale and speed are essential characteristics of a sustainable media for reaching out to the potential customers.
Indeed, “advertising is capable of reaching a large or dispersed market repeatedly with persuasive and informative messages” (Michaelis 2001, p.93). Belz and Peattie (2009) support this assertion by arguing that advertising is considered as “one of the most powerful sources of symbolic meaning in modern society” (p.45).
Thus, it is preferable that an organisation chooses the media of advertisement based on the actual and perceived number of people it can reach within a minimal amount of time and with less cost. McDonalds initially employed social media in its ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ brand campaign efforts.
Given that research has found that social media is vastly replacing direct face-to-face interactions and socialisation process among the youth, it is most likely that a large number of people would access placing an advert over social media networking sites.
Considering also that the costs of advertising over social media are significantly less compared to other alternatives when the scale and the geographical coverage of the ad are put into the equation, social media stands out as the most sustainable media for executing McDonalds’ ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ brand campaign.
Since this campaign targets mainly the youth, social media becomes even more sustainable since youths comprise the people associated with social media (Anwar, 2012: Heinrichs, Lim & Lim, 2011: Eltantawy & Wiest 2011). Through social media, it is also possible for public relations of the McDonalds to establish positive relation with youthful consumers.
The public relations can upload ads that capture the attention of the target audience and response to arising reactions from the target audience promptly with speed even though the target group and the public relation are geographically disjointed.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Promoting an organisation’s brand in a new market requires development of substantive marketing strategies. In the paper, this issue was argued as entailing selection and choice of an appropriate media and promotional techniques. The suitability and sustainability of various media and proportional tools was argued as being influenced by the characteristics of the people targeted by a given brand marketing campaign.
However, through consideration of the case of McDonalds attempts to place fast foods products in Indian market, the paper associated the registered success of the organisation’s campaign branded as ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ to its design.
The design deployed media that would successfully reach a large number of potential target groups but also innovation of the company to create new products meeting the tastes and preferences of the local people.
Although social media was the principle media for the campaign, the paper argued that even the traditional media such as television, print media, and radio could be effective and hence sustainable means of enhancing the interest and desire of the campaign’s target group.
The media facilitates the success of promotional techniques such as direct sales, public relations, and sales promotional to different extents. It is recommended that while advancing a brand promotional campaign such as McDonalds ‘how spicy is McSpicy’ effort should be made to establish a balance between the degrees to which each of the media is used based on the effectiveness and efficacy of each one of them.
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