Big Ad Attacks

Crains' Chicago Business reports on the competitive ads being
run by McDonald's competitors.



I think McDonald's competitors saw an opportunity to
focus on food and value while McDonald's wasted half
of 2009's advertising on McCafe.

Crain's article is HERE

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Burger King Lawsuit

Nation's Restaurant News reports extensively on
franchisee's lawsuit against Burger King Corp.

You'll find discussion about price fixing by some
of our favorite attorneys and analysts.

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Advertising Wisdom

Nineteenth century retailer John Wanamaker illustrated how difficult it was to reach potential customers using traditional advertising by saying "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

Fortunately, McDonald's Owner/Operators know the answer to that quandary - it's the half of their advertising budget being spent on McCafe.

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Ralph Retires To Spend More Time With ....... ???

Health problems force retirement?

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An Owner/Operator Comments on McCafe

In THIS BusinessWeek article

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Thompson on McCafe

McDonald's manangment continues to claim McCafe is
"exceeding expectations". I finally figured out what
that means - based on the four years of testing
manangment only expected a store to sell 40 a day!

In this article Don Thompson
told analysts, "The question I get is, has McCafe
been good for our business? And I confidently say
'yes.' Were it not, you might not see me here today,"

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McDonald's Operator Cash Flow?

During the November 12th ananlyst meeting MCD
investors were told:

"The average US McDonald's franchisee unit had
operational cash flow of $314K/unit last year
likely pre-debt service), and average equity of
$4.7M per owner/operator."

One analyst's take is HERE

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Starbucks - McCafe Made Us Better

The CEO said the McDonald's McCafe advertising blitz prompted many coffee drinkers to compare products from the two companies.

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Starbucks showing signs of recovery

During the latest quarter ended Sept. 27, same-store sales fell 1 percent, an actual improvement over the 5 decrease reported for same-store sales during the company's 2008 fourth quarter.

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McDonald's Analyst Day - More Promises to Shareholders

Our friendly analyst Mark Kalinowski is qouted in
this ... Dow Jones article

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