"Mickey D's McMakeover"

The plastic look is out. "Clean and simple" is in.

But at $300 to $400K to remodel an outlet, the franchisees will take some convincing.

In a recent letter to management at the company's headquarters in Oak Brook, about 160 franchisees from North Carolina spelled out why they oppose the new plan. They say the roof change erases 40 years of brand building and that "there has been no business case presented which justifies the change." Says Frederick Huebner, who owns 11 McDonald's in North Carolina: "We don't want to lose the iconic look of what we've got." If franchisees balk, McDonald's can refuse to renew their contract.

Comments

[whosonfirst]

Why can't they be satisfied being what they are, a successful fast food chain. I can remember when they had no pretensions and everything they sold was the same price...fifteen cents.

[JorgXMcKie]

@whosonfirst, in my experience, what has happened is that either, a) upper management has been invaded and taken over by the "marketing" people [step one to ruining a business], and/or b) someone very high up in management has a new girl/boyfriend who thinks they know both "marketing" and business.
I was on board when b) happened to the most successful business of its kind [27% market share], a Monsanto subsidiary, lost 3/4 of its sales in a single year and eventually disappeared, basically because the CEO got a 25-year-old girlfriend who had a marketing degree [or the functional equivalent] and she had some "great ideas" for spiffing up the company. It was brutal. [Of course, we didn't learn about the girlfriend until much later.]

[whosonfirst]

@JorgXMckie It usually comes back to Heller's Law - The first myth of management is that it exists.

[Simon]

Article is from 2006, and the remodel seems to be moving forward, based on local MCD's

[D. Watson]

I was in the most upscale McD's I ever saw last weekend in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York. It was Bizarro World McDonald's. Nice. Almost comfortable. Upscale. Bizarre!