Almost anywhere in the world you can find a McDonald’s restaurant. However, the menu may be a bit different depending on where you go since they do adapt their menu to meet the local tastes of the countries they operate in. They also use different advertising campaigns in each country.
Go to YouTube and do some searches on “McDonald’s overseas advertisements” or similar searches and find an example of a funny advertisement that McDonald’s has done overseas. You may also find some videos of menu items that you can find at an overseas McDonald’s, or some McDonald’s advertisements in the country that you are studying for your SLP.
Choose a video or two that you think is the funniest or most interesting, and share with your classmates. Then explain the advertisement in the context of why you think McDonald’s has chosen a strategy of product and advertising adaptation and how effective do you think the foreign advertisements that you’ve seen have been. In addition to the videos, also make sure to reference one of the readings from the background materials in your post.
Marketing and Strategy
Required Reading
The following interactive tutorial will introduce you to some of the key concepts in international marketing and strategy. Pay special attention to the concepts of standardization and adaptation:
The global marketplace (2014). Pearson Learning Solutions. New York, NY.
For a more detailed discussion of standardization versus adaptation in international marketing see:
Herbig, P. A. (1998). Chapter 2: The standardization versus adaptation debate: Wherefore art thou now? In E. Kaynak & P.A. Harbig (Eds.), Handbook of Cross-Cultural Marketing (pp. 31-50). Haworth Press, Inc., Philadelphia, PA, USA. [Business Source Complete]
A closely related issue to standardization versus adaptation is the choice of overall international strategy. The strategy choices include multi-domestic (high degree of adaptation), global (high degree of standardization), and transnational (a hybrid strategy). Carefully read the following two chapters for more on this important topic:
Jeyarathmm, M. (2008). Chapter 12: Strategy in a global environment. Strategic Management. Himalaya Publishing House. Mumbai, IND, pp. 155-165. [Ebrary. Note: you don’t have to read the whole chapter – just up to page 165. The rest of the chapter will be covered in Module 4]
Steers, R. M., & Nardon, L. (2005). Chapter 10: Developing global business strategies.
Managing in the Global Economy. Armonk, NY, USA: M.E. Sharpe, Inc. [Ebrary]
