Dairy Queen Vs Mc Donald's By Mensur Boydas

Online, June 9, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The purpose of this report is to establish a comparison between Dairy Queen and its major competitor Mc Donald's from the 4P's perspective that are; product, price, place, and promotion in the customers' and producers' viewpoints. From the producers' viewpoint Dairy Queen has three different businesses DQ Julius, DQ brazier, and DQ Grill and Chill. To conduct this research, a questionnaire was prepared and asked to 43 people of whom 24 men and 19 women. The questions are specifically measuring the 4P's of both fast food franchises Dairy Queen and Mc Donald's. Some of the most important conclusions of the survey are as the following;
• Mc Donald's is better at quality of the food products,
• Mc Donald's is better at quality of service,
• Dairy Queen is better at quality of ice cream,
• Mc Donald's is better at overall rating,
• Mc Donald's is better at people's frequency of visits,
• Mc Donald's is better at promotions.
Generally, what we observe from these results is the image of Mc Donald's is better at peoples' minds because it is everywhere all around us, on the other hand Dairy Queen is mainly known to be as an ice cream company. Mc Donald's also has a charity work that has an influence on peoples' perception.

Recommendations
There are many recommendations that we have come up for Dairy Queen Corporation to get a better level to compete with its major competitor Mc Donald's. They are; improving food products' quality, lowering the prices of products, opening more shops around where the potential of population is high such as teaming up with a big corporation, and finding new ways of promotion and advertisement strategies to be more in the minds of people.

McDonald's
From the management's viewpoint, McDonald's differs from other food services by offering more variety than any other fast food restaurants. From the regular hamburgers to ice cream and milkshakes, from deli sandwiches to salads and Chicken McNuggets, McDonald's has everything that you could ask for from a fast food restaurant. What McDonald's lacks in food quality it makes up in its variety and speed and efficiency.
The quality of the service is much greater then at many other fast food chains due to the fact there are strict guide lines in place setup by McDonald's Corporation for each of the franchises to follow. McDonald's employees must be trained before they are allowed to operate any equipment on their own, and are repeatedly exposed to the ideologies of the industry that fast food must be just that, fast food. Restaurants are designed to aid in the efficiency of services provided to the customer. Efficiency has become so engrained in the philosophy of McDonald's that it has even designed the seating area to become uncomfortable to sit in for extended periods of time, always allowing recently entered patrons the opportunity to have a seat for a short time. Like most fast food restaurants, McDonald's has designed the stores to provide service to the greatest number of people all at once. They have several tills for order at inside, as well as drive through and take out.
Price
Price listings, discounts, payment methods  McDonald's price lists are made available for the public to view very easily from nearly all areas of the store. The prices at McDonald's are designed to be competitive with all other fast food restaurant chains, while still maximizing profits off of every sale. McDonald's also offers coupons through the mail for customers to take advantage of, while at the same time promoting their brand. Allowing customers a wide variety in payment methods is also for promotion of the brand due to there not being any restriction on how to complete transactions, whether it is by cash, debit, or credit card.
Place
Locations, Distribution, Age, Gender, Orientation (family, date,...) McDonald's can be found in nearly every town and city in North America, and in many countries throughout the world. Each chain focuses on the demographic and gender ratios that are present in the local area, as well as to any fluctuations in seasonal consumers. McDonald's also looks to provide services according to who enters the chain. McDonald's offers children's meals including a toy, they offer breakfast to those who rise early, and they even recently started to offer healthy eating choices on their menu.
Promotion Activities
Food promotion McDonald's takes advantage of every method of advertisement that is currently available. Their ads can be seen and heard on the internet, television, and radio, as well as seen on billboards and posters at crowded events. McDonald's even goes so far as to spend ridicules sums of money on advertisement during sporting events such as the Super Bowl. McDonald's is promoting everything they offer, from their food product, to their services, as well as their charity work.
Costumer's Viewpoint
Product-From the costumer's viewpoint McDonald's offers the most in terms of variety, when compared to all other fast food restaurants including Dairy Queen. McDonald's is predictable, before even entering the restaurant the costumer knows that the service will be quick, the burger will look the same as every time, the restaurant is dependable. It is this mechanized way of doing business that has enabled McDonald's to remain on top of the fast food chain marketplace. However, within that rigidity, there is a certain level of flexibility. According to this, it is meant that McDonald's enables itself to cater to most every cultural and religious desire inherent in the population of interest. In an area with lots of Hindu's they serve more vegetarian and chicken products. They also try to cater to all tastes and preferences; for instance in New Zealand, McDonald's offer to upgrade burgers with avocado. Closer to home, the McDonald's restaurants on the east coast of Canada differentiate their menus by offering a lobster roll option to satisfy the surrounding population. In conclusion, McDonald's has just enough flexibility to cater to certain tastes and preferences as best they can while remaining mechanized, systematic, and efficient.
Price-The prices at McDonald's are similar to all other fast food chains, they also accept all methods of payment. Not only does McDonald's take all major modes of payment, but they also offer the option of not even having to enter the restaurant. Orders can be either be called in or ordered online from the internet, and then delivered to the costumer. This is where McDonald's separates itself from its fast food counterparts; all other fast food restaurants, with the exception of pizza places, do not deliver. This has the effect of allowing McDonald's to be more accessible to a larger costumer base than any one of its competitors. McDonald's also inundates the market place with coupons and offers for deals on their food products. Along with these offers, they also offer a Monopoly game every year to draw even more people in with the possibility of winning thousands of dollars just by eating McDonald's food.
Place-This is where other restaurants should take notice of the advancements made by the McDonald's empire. The number of restaurants McDonald's operates is absolutely astounding. Whether you live in a town of 500 or 10 million people, chances are you will be able to get to a McDonald's in less than 10 minutes. McDonald's knows that in order to be able to have the greatest amount of market share it simply must be more accessible to the most amounts of people, in order to accomplish this they have to have the most amounts of locations.
Promotion- Simply put, ask almost anyone in North America how to sing the Big Mac ingredient song and over half would probably be able to accomplish said task. McDonald's has snaked its way into every form of advertising known to man; whether it is on television, radio, the internet, or commercials in the movie theater. McDonald's also makes it self-known at pretty much all major sporting events taking place all over the world. They also make sure that not every commercial they air is targeted at promoting their food; some commercials do not even mention that they sell food. In these types of advertisements the main idea being portrayed is the Ronald McDonald's charitable organization. This is yet another area in which McDonald's is paving the way in the fast food industry. An important point to mention about McDonald's is the fact that they target young people, getting them hooked for life. They do this with the use of "play places" in their restaurants, unknowingly making kids associate and having fun with going to McDonald's. It is an incredibly strong advertising strategy but it definitely lacks ethical merit.

Marketing-Dairy Queen

Product

The Dairy Queen brand offers a wide variety of strategies for its product. One of Dairy Queen's strategies begins with the variety of stores. The smallest of the stores is called the DQ Julius, in which only ice cream is served with very limited food options such as hot dogs and pitas. The regular Dairy store is called the DQ brazier, in which regular burgers and food are served as well as a wide variety of ice cream. Finally, the newest store creation is the DQ Grill and Chill, in which food is cooked on a grill, the new "grill" burgers are served, new menu items such as grilled sandwiches and quesadilla's as well as the regular assortment of ice cream. The design of all stores is to provide quality fast service. By doing so the stores offer a drive-thru, take-out, sit down inside or outside on the patio. The layout of the store includes the front counter, where a cashier takes your order while another employee starts making your meal either in the back if the food is hot or right in front of you if the order includes ice cream. All of the ice cream products and toppings are located in a close range of the front counter to ensure fast service. Also to enhance quick ordering there is picture oriented displays as well as prices located on the display board for customers' knowledge. The packaging of the product also distributes the Dairy Queen brand by including the logo and sometimes the slogan. Kids' meal bags also include games about dairy queen products. The Dairy Queen Service is focused towards families and children. Many dairy queen stores also offer a play palace for children. To be competitive dairy queen must offer a quality service which they create through there slogan "DQ something different". Dairy Queen offers quality through product consistency, proper presentation of the product is very important. Dairy Queen actually weighs their ice cream cones and other ice cream products to ensure the customer is receiving the same amount each visit. Another product that displays quality is the blizzard, turned upside down when served to the customer to show thickness and preparation of the product, as it would not stay in the cup if made incorrectly. Another part of quality is the interaction of the employee with the customer. The employee is to have consistency. The employee must creating a friendly environment, always saying please and thank you and have a nice day, also in the drive thru the employee must sound like they are smiling because the customer isn't able to see the employee smiling.

Price
Prices are set through Dairy Queen Head office and are the same across all Dairy Queen Franchises. Prices are determined by the cost allotted to the actual product, the cost to serve the product as well as to create profit for the franchise. All prices are listed on the menu for easy visibility and to increase easy and quick service. Dairy Queen offers many types of transaction for easy payment by customers such as; cash, debit, credit and gift certificate.
Place/ Distribution
Dairy Queens locate themselves in areas in which traffic is abundant. Most dairy queen stores are located on main strips of town, beaches, shopping malls, the zoo, and overall in areas which are easily accessible to customers. Dairy Queen promotes their products and services to a wide range of customers such as families, children, dating, soccer teams and they also promote around the idea of summer time.

Advertising/ Promotional Activities
Dairy Queen offers a large variety of promotional activities these include; television commercials, radio, newspaper, flyers and signage. Their advertisements focus on their slogan "DQ something different" and also commercials tend to be funny so that customers remember them well. For example, one commercial demonstrates a business man eating a flamethrower burger and when he goes to talk he blows fire. The Dairy Queen symbol resembles lips with DQ imprinted in the middle. Dairy offers many discounts for customers such as; half price novelty sales, buy two cheeseburgers for $2.99, Customer appreciation day, miracle treat day, coupons, etc. Customer appreciation day is a day in which all ice cream cakes and novelties are half price as well as some selected menu items for only one day. Miracle Treat day is a day in which Dairy Queen supports a fundraiser by giving all proceeds from blizzards to a charity as well as selling a balloon for a $1 that goes towards the charity and the customer also receives a dollar in dairy queen coupons. Dairy Queen also supports local soccer teams within their communities by supplying jerseys with the dairy queen logo and offering team members a free ice cream cone after their games.
Customer's viewpoint
From the customers standpoint Dairy Queen is an outstanding distributor of ice cream products. They offer a variety of ice cream treats such as blizzards, banana splits, layered sundaes called parfaits, extra toppings on sundaes such as peanuts and whip cream, etc. The complexity of the product decreases service time and increases the price of the product. However since Dairy Queen only offers high quality products, their products tend to be higher priced then some of their competitors.
Many customers do not realize that Dairy Queen does not just offer ice cream but that they also offer hot food. Unlike Dairy Queens biggest competitor, Mc Donald's, Dairy Queen is not known for producing quick, efficient, cheap meals. Since Dairy Queen is mainly known for its ice cream and slightly higher prices, it is often over looked by customers when trying to decide where they should get their food. Other companies, such as Mc Donald's, offer desserts such as ice cream so after a meal customers tend to order dessert from where ever they ate their meal rather than go out of their way to a place such as dairy queen. Since customers do not associate dinner with dairy queen, they choose to go somewhere else instead.
Another main consumer of ice cream products are young children. Many of Dairy Queen's regular customers in the summer are sports teams or players after they have just had a practice or game. Many families and teams make it a ritual to come to Dairy Queen after they have won a game in order to celebrate and enjoy a cool treat. However, Dairy Queen does not offer a strong atmosphere for children, whereas their competitor Mc Donald's does. For example, kids meals always come with a toy and almost every Mc Donald's has a play place whereas very few Dairy Queen's do not.

Dairy Queen is known for their expensive prices and ice cream, so when customers are deciding where to eat food they think Mc Donald's and when they think ice cream they think of Dairy Queen. Therefore, Dairy Queen projects a brand positioning of ice cream within the consumers mind but not that of a fast food restaurant.

SUMMARY

From the producer's viewpoint Dairy Queen is divided into three different businesses DQ Julius, DQ Brazier, and DQ Grill and Chill that each have different products to serve. The set of the Dairy Queen stores are designed to serve faster for the convenience of customers. From the customers viewpoint Dairy Queen is the major distributor of ice cream with its wide variety of selections. On the other hand Mc Donald's from its producer's viewpoint it differs from other food services by offering more variety than any other fast food restaurants. Restaurants are designed to aid in the efficiency of services provided to the customer.

In the franchise market Mc Donald's is far ahead dominating the industry and it is known from the famous jingles advertisements in movies, televisions, radios, and billboards and posters. Dairy Queen is known for their expensive prices and ice cream and when people want to have fast food there is a Mc Donald's around the corner that they can eat. Overall in product, place, promotion, and especially in price Mc Donald's is the leading franchise corporation in the world. Dairy queen need to upgrade its 4P's in order to strengthen itself in the concept of concern.