Today's open letter on McDonald's pricing and the attached infographic are well done but long overdue. I was originally going to claim the $18 meal deal had been in the public eye for a few months, but then I did a search. It first showed up on social media in July of last year!
Since these myths were allowed to fester it seems every media report on inflation has mentioned prices at McDonald's. This could have been squelched with a more modest version of today's release - maybe last fall.
Remember when McDonald's Corp. had something of a "quick response" team to deal with such misreporting? If there is still such a team, they must have been off attending a ESG or DEI workshop.
Your "Royalties" at work.
9 comments:
They fired their quick response team along with any communications people who had any experience whatsoever.
At least the "quick response team" didn't decide to jump right into the pro-Hamas protest controversies. I'm sure Chris K lay twitching in bed controlling himself . Some adult in the room must have taken away is Twitter (excuse me, X) editorial control.
The layoffs neutered the entire corporation. Only the stock price matters.
Why arent there stories about Starbucks $9.00 cup of coffee?????
"Why arent there stories about Starbucks $9.00 cup of coffee?????"
Probably because everyone knows that SBUX doesn't care about its customers, its employees or society beyond the maximum amount of cash it can extract from all of them. It sells the logo to sheeple who think it is a status symbol as opposed to say, a MCD or Dunkin logo on the logo on the cup for a reasonable price.
People expect value and care for the family that buys Happy Meals for they kids in exchange for their business. SBUX never cared to create that expectation in the public. They cater to the most craven of impulses in society because those are the company's own core values.
The media, many of whose members share these "values," willingly expects to get taken advantage of by SBUX.
Many members of the media believe to the core that they are better than you are and know better what is good for you than you do for yourself. You can feel the sneer and smaram in the tone of their writing about common people and the McDOoalds products that they buy. They believe that they are too good to eat the same food and that you shouldn't either. You should give your $$$ to SBUX instead, like they do.
That's why.
Many in the media feel their role is to “change the world.” Howard Schultz has tried to do the same with the Starbucks brand, and the damage that’s done is starting to show. However, Starbucks and Schultz will still get positive press coverage because members of the media still admire their socialist corporate mission.
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AT least Schultz knew that the PR was all BS, he was interested in profit and hid that behind the BS. The media bought it despite the quarterly reports and rampant capitalist growth.
When Schultz left, the remaining corporate lackeys forgot that it was really about the money and the social messaging was just supposed to be marketing. The employee "partners" eventually figured it out; that's why they formed unions-they wanted to get theirs, too.
The media remains clueless.
Clueless?” Your expectations might be too high. The media will never cover a company as deeply as we wish. First, the reporters don’t have the expertise. How many reporters have experience in business or self-employment? Essentially zero. That’s just not part of their career path. They get out of school, work for a few small publications, and then might end up with a significant company. Secondly, they will cover multiple companies or industries. Some years back, I did a lot of work with an important publication, the kind you’d think would or could go in-depth. The very capable and experienced reporter was responsible for covering the entire restaurant industry and the entire grocery business. In other words, all food.
The days of “investigative reporters” are over. I think destroyed by the speed of the internet.
If you want to influence a company, you do what McDonald’s franchisees have done: Form an active group, make and implement your plan, and then slowly bring in the press. You can’t just tease a publication with superficial information and then wait for them to do the work.
Without a lot of inside help, the media remains clueless.
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Inside help is the key! NOA was completely necessary and if any O/Os do not belong they need their heads examined.
No one is going help you but you, arm in arm with your fellow franchise owners.
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