McDonald’s is one of the best known brands worldwide. This case study shows how McDonald’s aims to continually build its brand by listening to its customers. It also identifies the various stages in the marketing process. Branding develops a personality for an organization, product or service. The brand image represents how consumers view the organization.

Branding only works when an organization behaves and presents itself in a consistent way. Marketing communication methods, such as advertising and promotions, are used to create the colors, designs and images which give the brand its recognizable face. At McDonald’s this is represented by its familiar logo – the Golden Arches.

In all its markets, McDonald’s faces competition from other businesses.

Additionally, economic, legal and technological changes, social factors, the retail environment and many other elements affect McDonald’s success in the market. Marketing involves identifying customer needs and requirements and meeting these needs in a better way than competitors. In this way a company creates loyal customers.

The starting point is to find out who potential customers are – not everyone will want what McDonald’s has to offer. The people McDonald’s identifies as likely customers are known as key audiences.

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