12 Biggest FailuresMcDonald’s Ever Had

Bermand Galung Present

McLobster

• Pretty much lobster meat shoved in a hot dog bun with "McLobster sauce" and shredded lettuce.

• Price too high for customer to pay a single sandwich

• It’s difficult to market a "quality" shellfish item at a fast food joint

• Currently only available in parts of New England and eastern Canada

Hula Burger

• Meatless burger meant for Catholics who abstained from eating meat every Friday. Instead of a beef or chicken patty, its bun contained a grilled pineapple slice, topped with cheese.

• Basically, it was a piece of grilled pineapple and cheese, on a bun.

• Customer didn't like it. • McDonald’s stop Hula Burger

sales and launch the alternative Filet-o-Fish

McGratin Croquette

• Specially created for the Japanese market, also known as the Gurakoro.

• It contains deep fried macaroni, shrimp and mashed potatoes

• Most attribute its failure to its taste. Didn't match up well with the Japanese consumer’s want. They don’t like it and it never lasts.

McPizza• Made-to-order pizza took far

longer to make than the usual McDonald's fare

• You cannot make a good pizza in two minutes, so customers complained about the wait.

• Consumers just weren't willing to wait for food that was supposed to be fast in fastfood restaurant

• It just wasn't consistent with the McDonald's product and brand positioning.

• People went to McDonald's for burgers and fries, not pizza.

• McDonald's didn't have the pull to take customers away from the big competitors like Domino's and Pizza Hut

McHotDog

• Mismatch of Product and Brand positioning.

• No one thought the hot dog (low quality food) was a Mc D’s kind of food, a high quality branded restaurant, so it stalled out. But, you can still get it in Japan!

McSpaghetti

• One of McDonald’s diner menu item. There was also lasagna and fettucini alfredo

• It sales went down quickly with the rest of that dinner menu.

• Like the McPizza, people just weren’t interested in eating spaghetti at McDonald’s.

• McDonald’s is not spaghetti specialist.

McAfrica

• Becarefull with the products name• This is one of the biggest

marketing catastrophes McDonald’s ever made, or McDonald’s worst marketing flop.

• Released in 2002 during a slew of famines in southern Africa.

• Once the PR crisis heated up.• McDonald's apologized and pulled

the item. • McDonald’s launch it again in a

2008 promotion for the Olympics. But it received a similar negative reaction.

Arch Deluxe• The burger quarter-pounder with

peppered bacon, lettuce, tomato, cheese, onions, ketchup and a secret sauce.

• Launch in 1996 and was meant to target McDonald's adult customers.

• But McDonald’s make big mistake in marketing campaign.

• The advertisements depicted children disgusted with the burger

• One of the most expensive product failures in McDonald's history, primarily due to the $100 million marketing campaign that accompanied it

• Later, McDonald's tried a similar sandwich in Japan, called the Tomato McGrand. It failed too.

McDLT• Packaging issue.• Introduced in the mid-1980s. It

was a simple burger with lettuce and tomato, but came in a styrofoam package with separated the lettuce and tomato from the beef patty, keeping the veggies cool and the meat warm.

• PR crisis squashed it. The country was becoming increasingly conscious about the environment, and the double-container caused double the damage.

• McDonald's pulled the ill-fated McDLT from its menu in 1990, after a 6-year run.

McLean Deluxe • This burger was intended to target

those people who don’t usually eat burgers because of being unhealthy.

• It was advertised as 91% fat free. • In theory the McLean Deluxe was

a great idea. The public was introduced to it in 1991, at a time when the world was becoming more concerned about health.

• Everything is going right until the public came to know why it was so lean

• The fat was replaced with water. and injection of carrageen

• You can imagine, it wasn’t tasty at all!

Big N' Tasty

• Fail to defeat competitor’s products especially Burger King Whooper sandwich.

• Consumer preferences had leaned towards another line of McDonald's items - the Angus burgers

• The company decided to cut Big N' Tasty from its menu.

Super-size

• Started offering in 1993, and sales grow up. But it all went downhill in 2004.

• Independent filmmaker Morgan Spurlock's documentary “Super Size Me” was released. The film showed Spurlock eating nothing but McDonald's for a month, and how it negatively affected his body.

• It’s PR disaster for McDonald's, and the company start pulling super-sizing product from its menus by the end of 2004.