Julian Crowley
According to The New York Times, the recent economic slump hasn’t slowed McDonald’s down one bit. Based on 2011 sales data studied by food industry research specialists Technomic Inc., McDonald’s hold the biggest share of the market in their category. In fact, McDonald’s’ piece of the pie is almost equivalent to the market shares of Burger King, Wendy’s, Starbucks and Subway combined.
The burger giant’s major business drive at the moment is making people feel better about their product, so they’ve been revamping outlets and marketing the company as green and healthy. As part of their rebranding, McDonald’s have got bloggers on their side by offering them behind-the-scenes trips, in the hope that the Internet scribes will write favorably about their experiences. Combining this with other steps, such as paying Twitter to ensure that they stay at the top of the site’s trends list, McDonald’s have tapped into a digital market whose audience is suspicious of force-fed ad campaigns.
Still, as much as we can learn from the company’s success, we can also be equally enlightened by their failures – with relish on top! Take a look at these 15 weakly planned product ideas – menu options all of which were doomed to fail.
