Day 037 - 14 Oct 94 - Page 18
1 to stick with the system and, if necessary, wait for the
2 German consumer to accept it.'" Of course, they do not
3 actually wait; what they do is try to change the culture.
4
5 "Nor was the Australian and German experience unique on
6 that score. In effect, McDonald's realised that it could
7 only be successful abroad if it stuck to the very same
8 menu and store design that worked at home. 'McDonald's is
9 an American food system,' reasons Steve Barnes, chairman
10 of McDonald's International. 'If we go into a new country
11 and incorporate their food products into our menu, we lose
12 our identity. We're neither fish nor foul.'" That
13 strikes me as an extraordinary attitude.
14
15 Finally, I just mention -----
16
17 Q. The next sentence seems to be relevant after "fish nor
18 foul".
19 A. Yes, it goes on to make the same point again. I just
20 hope I am not making it rather tedious.
21
22 Q. Just read the next sentence.
23 A. "Rather than change their menus or their stores,
24 McDonald's foreign partners made major changes in
25 marketing in order to sell the American System. Among
26 other things, advertising went back to the basics, back to
27 the 1950s, when even in the United States McDonald's was
28 explaining what its fastfood system was and how it
29 worked."
30
31 Q. That last sentence, "made major changes in marketing"?
32 A. In its marketing strategy, I think would be clearer.
33
34 Q. So these changes that they are making, did it seem that
35 marketing was the key?
36 A. Marketing of a most unorthodox nature. As I
37 have explained, it is not traditional marketing, which
38 studies the market, follows what the consumer wants, and
39 survives or fails on its ability to satisfy needs and
40 wants. McDonald's clearly are not very good at doing
41 this. Their whole strategy is to establish themselves
42 with a huge amount of cash that their American operation
43 produced initially and go into another culture, change
44 that culture to suit the product; change it, in my view,
45 very often for the worse; change it without any regard for
46 what was there previously.
47
48 When I first read this chapter, my blood as a marketer ran
49 cold. The final page I refer you to is page 439, which is
50 another quote from a McDonald's executive. It is right at
51 the top of the page. It is the final sentence of the end
52 of that paragraph: "Noust", who is a McDonald's
53 executive, "Noust says of the approach: 'We never want to
54 position McDonald's as an American company changing the
55 German culture, but rather as a company that feels it is
56 German.'"
57
58 That too, that is essentially untrue, because precisely
59 what they do has, I think, been amply illustrated in
60 previous quotes. So, again it reinforces my view that
