McDonald - The Arthur Page Society

corporate stature, McDonald’s Corporation was added to the 30-company Dow Jones
Industrial Average in 1985. 22
McDonald’s innovative advertising strategies further propelled its growth. In the
1970s, customers were told “You Deserve a Break Today,” a message tied into a
society with families looking for convenience as more women joined the work force. 23
During the 1980s, McDonald’s continued to tap into cultural change through public
messages that reflected the values of mobility, economy, and convenience. While
Wendy’s and Burger King provided intense competition in the early 1980s,
McDonald’s emerged as the clear winner in system-wide sales due to “advertising
messages that symbolically reconstituted the family and relocated it under the golden
arches.” 24 McDonald’s became the place for being a family. 25
In the 1980s, as competitors adopted McDonald’s recipe for success, ever-more
sophisticated differentiation strategies emerged. 26 While most menu options had been
duplicated by other fast food companies, McDonald’s chose marketing communication
strategies centered not on products, but on human needs and feeling. The theme
“McDonald’s and You—We Grew Up Together” evoked McDonald’s as part of the
family experience. Advertisements featured vignettes and slice-of-life stories.
1.4 Issue Brewing with the “McLibel” Suit: 1990s
By 1990, more than seven cents out of every dollar spent by Americans on food
consumed outside the home was spent at McDonald’s. 27 McDonald’s per share stock
price was $14.63 in 1994 and rose to its all-time high of $40.31 in 1999. 28 During that
same time period, total revenues rose from $8,321 million (1994) to $13,259 million
(1999).
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