MCD: Adjusting Our Forecasts; Would the Straw Hat Pirates Approve?
Back on August 4th, McDonald’s management commented that “In late April, we augmented our McValue program with a new under $3 Every Day Affordable Price or EDAP menu…. We also added a $4 Breakfast Meal Deal. Inconsistent restaurant level execution of the EDAP menu and consumer awareness levels below target resulted in lower incrementality than we expected. At the same time, the business pulled back on digital offers and removed our Buy One, Add One for $1 feature to offset the investment behind McValue. In combination, all of these factors negatively impacted visits from some of our most loyal customers. We estimate that these value execution factors accounted for about 2/3 of the customer traffic underperformance relative to our expectations for the quarter. The remainder of our underperformance can largely be attributed to our FIFA campaign in June. While the campaign provided a lift to the business and generated excellent system excitement, the campaign underperformed versus our expectations.”
