Exercise 7A: Compare and Contrast McDonald’s Marketing Expenses Versus Rival Firms

Purpose

Marketing is expensive. For example, a 30-second ad spot during the annual NFL Super Bowl costs about $6 million. Yet, firms must do marketing otherwise, even the best products in the world can go unnoticed. But firms can go broke doing marketing. These are reasons why marketing is a key business function and an important issue in strategy implementation. This exercise can give you experience comparing and contrasting McDonald’s marketing expenditures versus two major rivals: Restaurant Brands (owns Burger King) and Yum Brands (owns Taco Bell and Pizza Hut). Analysis in this regard can provide guidance on whether to increase or decrease McDonald’s marketing expenditures.

Instructions

• Step 1:  Go online to the McDonald’s (https://www.mcdonalds.com), Restaurant Brands International (https://www.rbi.com), and Yum Brands (https://www.yum.com) websites at the respective Investor Relations page and download the three Form 10Ks for the respective firms.
• Step 2:  Look in the Table of Contents of each Form 10K to find the pages that reveal the three firms’ marketing or advertising expenditures.
• Step 3:  Prepare a comparative data table to consolidate this information.
• Step 4:  Prepare a report to suggest implications for McDonald’s in terms of marketing or advertising expenditures going forward as needed to implement strategies.