Even the best-known brands and icons must be updated. McDonald’s is the world’s most popular restaurant and is also the foremost authority of consistent food quality. McDonald’s is changing because of intense fast food competition and consumer concerns about fat and calories. You’ll even be seeing more white meat and fish at your local McDonald’s hangout.
What happened for this icon to change? The first heads-up was sluggish sales and customer food concerns. We want leaner fast food because it’s better for us. Then, in fast-food head-to-head competition, McDonald’s burgers lost out to the competition. The company to a lot of observers began to look like the old IBM or AT&T – too large and too unresponsive to customers. The company viewed change as a threat to its success formula, to its founder’s dream, and to its huge legend. This became the call to war. Something needed to be done. One of the first things was to bring in new managers who didn’t have ketchup in their veins or had gone to the company’s Hamburger U.[i]
[i] Helliker, Kevin and Gibson, Richard, “The New Chief Is Ordering Up Changes at McDonald’s,” Wall Street Journal, August 24 ,1998, p. B1.