McDonald's attempted to cater to health-conscious customers with products like McLean Deluxe and McSoup, but experienced its most embarrassing flop with the Arch Deluxe burger. Marketed as a "burger with grown-up taste" to appeal beyond children, the Arch Deluxe failed because customers don't go to McDonald's for sophistication or variety, but for convenience and consistency. Despite extensive market research finding demand for an adult-oriented burger, the Arch Deluxe saw little customer uptake at launch.

2. McLean Deluxe and McSoup
 This was an attempt to cater for the health
conscious customer.
 These are two obvious examples, but it was with the
Arch Deluxe burger that McDonald‟s experienced
its most embarrassing flop.

3. McLean Deluxe
McSoup

4. The story…
 Marketed as the „Burger with the Grown-up Taste‟, the
idea was to have a burger which wasn‟t associated with
children.
 Indeed, the advertising campaign for the Arch Deluxe
rammed the message home with various images of kids
shunning the „sophisticated‟ product.
 The trouble was that nobody goes to McDonald‟s for
sophistication, they go for convenience.
 Everybody knows that McDonald‟s is never going to be
awarded a Michelin star, yet everybody still comes back.

5.  Most people who walk into a McDonald‟s restaurant
know what they are going to order before they
reach the counter.
 They don‟t want to be bombarded with a million and
one variations on what is essentially the same
product – a hamburger.
 The other problem with the Arch Deluxe was the
fact that it was sold on taste.

6.  In an article headlined „McDonald‟s Missing the
Mark,‟ which appeared in Brand Week on 12
November 2001, Dave Miller attacked the „compete
on taste‟ strategy apparent in the promotion of the
Arch Deluxe:
 We don‟t come to the Golden Arches on the merits of taste
and tantalization and culinary delight.
 We prize your brand on
friendliness, cleanliness, consistency and convenience
 They are value propositions that you‟ve abdicated in recent
years and – luckily – competitors have neglected to capture

7.  McDonald‟s has been accused of losing touch with
its customers and being too far behind the market.
 „We have been taking much too long to develop an
idea and get it to the market, then too long to
decide whether we want to do it or not‟
- Jack Greenberg, CEO, stated in an article of Financial
Times entitled “A mission to buff up the golden
arches”

8.  Another interesting aspect of the Arch Deluxe
failure is that the product was well researched.
 After conducting masses of market research, it
emerged that people would love to eat a burger
designed specifically for adults.
 Unfortunately, these people seemed to be in short
supply when the product was finally launched.

9. The Arch Deluxe composition from
an advertisement

11. Mistake by McDonald
 Not going for what they were better known for:
 Part of McDonald‟s brand identity is simplicity.
Another part is its child-friendly approach. A
„sophisticated‟ burger designed to exclude children
was therefore wrong decision.

12.  Created customer confusion:
 „McDonald‟s is not cognitive, it is reflexive,‟ says Dave
Miller in the November 2001 Brand Week article.
 „We treasure not having to think about it. It just “is”.‟
 By extending its range with products such as the Arch
Deluxe, Bratwursts, McTacos and
McMussels, McDonald‟s was creating a need to think.

13. Bratwursts
McTacos
McMussels

14. THANK YOU