Channel promotion ATL & BTL for McDonald’s & its competitor Burger

king

ATL (Above the line) BTL (Below the line)

Television Commercials In-store promotion

Radio advertisement Posters for different target group

Print advertisement Promotion done is a selected area

Celebrity endorsement Direct mail marketing

Roadside advertisement Sponsorship

McDonald’s also has an omni channel presence in the following channels

• In-store
• Website
• Mobile application
• Aggregators (Zomato Swiggy, Foodpanda etc.)

Above the line promotions

This type of promotion consists of advertising activities that are basically non-targeted & are
spread for wider each of customers. These are mainly in general promotional done by a
brand. It is also done for brand awareness & also informing the customers about the product.

Above the line marketing are done in a macro level to cover a bigger territory and also
includes mass marketing strategies. The medium used to promote the brand are television,
radio, celebrity, print & newspaper advertisement.

McDonald’s perform various ATL promotional strategies:

• General advertisement that create brand awareness & helps in brand building.
• Macro level promotion
• Celebrity endorsement

Advertisement:

McDonald’s always loves to invest in various advertisement & promotional activities.

“In 1967, McDonald's spent $2.3 million, or about 1 percent of its sales, on its first
national advertising campaign, which was an unheard amount for a fast-food chain.”
(Ray Kroc, McDonald's, And The Fast-Food Industry, n.d.)
Advertisement includes TV commercials, radio ads, print ads, billboards and display
advertisements. They mainly do these advertisements to pass information. They create more
attention-grabbing and eye-catching advertisement, which directly influence the sales.
Tag Line: Usually slogans are used for brand awareness and to connect the brand with its
customers. Their current slogan is "I'm Lovin' It." They also thought of coming up with a
new slogan i.e. "Lovin' Beats Hatin.
In-store/Poster and banner Ads: For promoting their new products & display various
ongoing offer to create a buzz, these mediums are used.

Celebrity Endorsement: McDonald’s endorsers include: Charles Barkley, Jessie J, Jason

Alexander, Kobe Bryant, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Usain Bolt, Ryan Lochte,
Stephanie Brown Trafton, Destiny's Child, Justin Timberlake and Billy Nelson.

Website:

These are some of the

promotion in the
McDonald’s website.
Below the line promotions

These type of advertisement consist of very specific, memorable & direct advertising
activities, which is targeted to a particular segment or a group of customer. They are mainly
used for a niche segment of market.
Below the line strategy focus more on conversion than on brand building. (PAHWA, 2019)

Various promotional activities involve under BTL are In-store promotion, target group
promotion, area wise promotion, direct mail marketing & sponsorship.

McDonald’s perform various BTL promotional strategies:

• Advertisement for a particular target group
• In-store activities
• Happy meals

Promotion targeting children: One of the major target for McDonalds are children.
McDonald’s Happy Meals which includes toys and they have balloons in all of their stores to
target children and get their attention.

Promotion targeting HSBC card holders: Customer having a HSBC card will be getting a
discount from McDonald’s.
Website:

This website advertisement was done targeting

children’s, as McDonalds is a place for their birthday
party celebration.

Promotion targeting breakfast grabber:

McDonald’s started providing all day breakfast
based on the demand seen on their consumed due
to their lifestyles.

Awareness programs: McDonald’s do promotion for

several awareness programs & various social initiatives.

Burger King

ATL (Above the line)

Mobile application

These are some of the recent promotion done in their mobile applications.
Website

These are some promotions done in Burger king’s website, where the 1st one was done to
promote their mobile app & also done to increase the useability of their mobile app.

This was also an online promotion done outside India by giving free online coupon for their
website & app purchase & increase their online sale.

Celebrity endorsement:
Burger King’s endorsers include: Shaquille O’Neal, David
Beckham & so on.

Aggregators

These promotions were done on various aggregators like the first one done on Food panda &
the 2nd was done both in Swiggy & Zomato.
Offline ( Outlet promotion)

BTL (Below the line)

This promotion was done with associated with tik Tok

challenge. In this way they are targeting the tik Tok users.

Similarly this promotion was done by Burger king

aiming the gamers or the game lovers.
This is promotion was done in associate with Delhi police.

This promotion was done with

respect to women’s day. This poster shows love to them for their
so much contribution towards making a better king.

This poster was made to target the work from customer &
attracting them with some additional discounts.

The above posters are targeted toward the friendship or a group of friends. These posters are
portraying each and every type of friends in a group i.e. Drama, Soul bae, Fultoo Kamina,
Chalu Cheez, Bhukkad Bro & so on. Burger king offering combos for each and every type of
friend.
 This advertisement was made to target the 9-5
job category who work the entire week with
full dedication & in weekend love to chill. So
burger king provides an amazing Friday to

Comparative analysis:
• Both are into omni channels & are doing promotion across all the channels.
• Burger are mainly focussing on Friday offers & mostly for weekend.
• McDonald’s mostly target kids, children etc. whereas Burger king mostly targets
working individual & friends group.
• McDonalds’ don’t promote more on aggregator model where as Burger king do
promotions relating aggregator model.
• Currently Burger king is focussing towards the work from home category.