Making McDonald’s App-etizing: How the Company is Combining New Technology and Classic Menu Items to Reach a New Consumer Base

When it comes to cheap eats, nobody does it (pink) slimier than McDonald’s. Years of undercutting healthier products in favor of inexpensive substitutes have caught up with the company, causing them to lose a decent amount of their customers, including myself. However, so much has been written on how the fast food industry is killing us that I doubt I would have anything interesting to say on that conversation. Instead I will focus on a more interesting topic, what is it about McDonald’s that has begun to draw customers back?

According to Kaylin Pound from Elite Daily, McDonald’s began by trying to change our tastes and preferences: remarketing “without us even noticing.” In 2016 the restaurant shifted away from many unhealthy ingredients they used to make items across their menu, a clear response to the market pressures the company faced due to the quality of their food. Now these changes, although seemingly made under the radar, still clearly made headlines, and surely reached many people subconsciously before McDonald’s began to advertise these healthier options.

One of the more prominent advertisements was for the new Quarter Pounder, which will be made of fresh beef by mid 2018. Luckily for me, however, the Dallas-Fort Worth area was selected as a test location for the burger, and I decided to try one in early 2017. As a consumer of the product, I must admit that I was impressed with the quality of the sandwich, even though it took longer to receive than any “fast food” item usually does. 

Deals from February 7, 2018.

However, as an economist, I must say that the marketing strategy implemented by McDonald’s was impressive. Drive-thru lines were packed for weeks, and many customers would willingly wait 5-10 minutes at a time for the revamped menu item. It is very clear that customers were willing to buy more sandwiches without a change in price, signaling a definite change in preferences.

McDonald’s wouldn’t stop there, however, and began looking for ways to get customers who cared less about the quality of the food to buy higher quantities of it. In 2015 they launched a free app that only requires the user to create an account with their email in order to use free coupons and claim rewards in store. I will admit to using the app quite frequently, bragging about how I will stop by on Free Fry Friday to claim a medium fry with any purchase. However, many of the deals on the app are strategically used by the company to incentivize consumers. In the picture above there are many different kinds of deals, three of which are “buy one, get one free” deals for “premium products” of some sort. These deals reward consumers for buying a more expensive sandwich than they might have purchased regularly with another sandwich.

In addition to the app, however, the restaurant has also revamped their dollar menu. As Bloomberg reports, “McDonald’s Corp. is seeing a jump in customers” due to the recent changes to their value meals, suggesting a shift toward equilibrium in the market for their cheaper foods. As a result of this, some restaurant owners believe that the increased popularity in the value menus will draw customers away from the more expensive items of higher quality, however, I would beg to differ. With the combination of the companies efforts to improve the quality of their premium sandwiches, more customers will frequent restaurants as their preferences shift towards these items. Simultaneously, options like the McDonald’s app and the new value menu offer discounts that will increase sales throughout the menu. As a former critic of McDonald’s, I must say that I am impressed, not only by the quality of their new burgers, but also by the genius of their rebranding campaign.

Uncapped: The Mishandling of The Country’s Opioid Crisis

On October 26, President Trump declared a public health emergency for one of the biggest problems our country faces, the opioid crisis. I strongly believe that the federal government has not done enough to stop this crisis in the past, however declaring a “public health emergency” does not accomplish this goal. In the words of Democratic Senator Edward J. Markey, Trumps plan “offered the country a Band-Aid when we need a tourniquet.” The opioid crisis has many layers to it, and simply declaring it a public health crisis will not fix the true issues involved in the crisis.

First off, in declaring it a public health crisis, Trump has effectively postponed any actual effort to fight this epidemic. He made his declaration under the Public Health Service Act, which does not guarantee funding for this cause. I believe that he should have declared it a National Emergency under the Stafford Act, which would have allowed for FEMA funds to be used immediately. It is important to note that these funds would have been stretched thin as it is considering that three hurricanes all recently hit the U.S., however immediate action must be taken when 64,000 Americans died in 2016 due to overdoses.

 

 

The president is not the only one inhibiting progress in the fight against opioids, a few members of congress have as well. In April of 2016 the Marino bill was passed, essentially giving major pharmaceutical distributors immunity from DEA penalty for knowingly filing suspicious orders of opioids. The bill was introduced by Representative Tom Marino from Williamsport Pennsylvania, one of the communities hit hardest by the opioid crisis, and was heavily supported by major drug companies, pharmacies, and manufacturer associations. These companies had been targeted in previous years by DEA investigators due to high numbers of unreported suspicious pill shipments, and had ended up paying hundreds of millions of dollars in fines because of this. Needless to say, these pharmaceutical companies did not take kindly to these penalties, and shelled out millions more dollars to pass this legislation.

$102 million was spent by the industry in lobbying expenses on the Marino bill, yet the money only tells part of the story. Companies began hiring former DEA prosecutors in order to protect themselves from further fines, the most prominent being Linden Barber. Barber had taken on the big drug companies for years and knew the ins and outs of every case, so when he started lobbying on behalf of the industry, he knew exactly how to defend them as well. He is the one who wrote the Marino bill, and he was able to use his previous DEA experience to convince the Energy and Commerce Committee of the legislation’s pros.

Currently, at the height of the opioid crisis, every agency that should have the authority to go after those distributing the drugs has their hands tied. The DEA no longer will be able to go after the drug companies that pump pills into our streets, and the president has halted all immediate forms of action that could be taken to help people in need. To make it worse, Trump submitted Marino’s name to congress so that he could be approved as the next drug czar. Marino recently withdrew himself from consideration, yet if the president’s first pick for the position was the man who championed a bill to protect the drug companies, I am scared who he will pick next for the position. What we need is for serious changes to be made by congress in order to save the lives of those affected by opioid addiction. The first of these changes would be to amend the Marino bill as soon as possible. In its current state, the bill puts hundreds of thousands of Americans in danger. The second change that needs to happen is for new legislation to be passed. Senator Markey co-introduced a piece of legislation that would give $4.5 billion in funding for the crisis to the states.

The opioid crisis has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in our country, and more are being lost everyday. The president has said that he will address the issue, yet his actions have not been swift enough. Congress must act quickly so that the government bodies centered around these issues will have the power to solve them.

 

Political Laryngitis: The Stifled Voice of the American Voter

“We The People”, the three words that serve as the foundation for our country’s most important document, could not be less accurate when discussing how our elections are set up. As everyone reading this knows, the current leader of our country represents a minority of the popular vote, making him our 2nd minority president in 5 elections. Regardless of political affiliation, we can not deny that the will of the people is not currently decided in our country’s federal elections, but how do we fix this discrepancy? The altering the electoral college would be an easy answer, but there are other problems that could rise in altering the system.

First off, the college was set into the framework of the constitution, so getting rid of it would take an immense amount of work. First off, both sections of Congress would have to pass an amendment abolishing it by three-fourths majority, which would be near impossible considering that the controlling party in both just won an election because of the system. It would be possible, however, for state governments to change how their electoral votes are counted. Most states use a winner take all system for votes, however both Maine and Nebraska award votes, “according to district as well as statewide results”(Schlesinger). So why haven’t more states switched to a method that splits the vote more like the population? By giving all of their electoral votes to one candidate, it “augments their power”(Schlesinger), essentially making state opinion’s count more than national opinions in the voting.

 

I highly doubt that this alone would fix the system anyways. In a study done by Jeff Singer of The Daily Kos, he found that, “Despite losing the national popular vote by 2.1%, Donald Trump carried 230 congressional districts and Hillary Clinton just 205.” Even if every state voted in the manner that Maine and Nebraska do, Trump would have acquired 230 votes through congressional districts and 60 more votes by winning 30 states outright, giving him 20 more votes than he needed to win the election. It might surprise people that this would be the case (it certainly surprised me), but it makes sense politically. Trump ran as a republican, the party that currently controls the House of Representatives, meaning that most of the congressional districts would align themselves with him.
These districts bring their own political problems to the table, however. These districts are zoned by state legislators, meaning that whichever party controls the state government, also has the power to effect the representation of their party in Congress. As a matter of fact, David A. Lieb of the Associated Press “found that Republicans won as many as 22 additional U.S. House seats over what would have been expected.” So, if, hypothetically, every district were rezoned to give candidates a more equal chance at congressional representation, There would be 22 more Democratic districts. In the situation that every state divides electoral votes out like Maine and Nebraska, this might have caused Trump to get 22 less votes, preventing him from clinching the presidency by 2. Of course this is not a perfect system, but it is much closer than we currently are.

Do Young People in The U.S. Truly Disregard their Civic Responsibilities?

There is a stereotype that young people generally disregard their civic responsibilities, and we have evidence to support this claim. In a poll conducted by NBC during the Presidential election of 2008, only 38% of young people between the ages of 18-24 actually voted for one of the two major parties, whereas 49% of senior citizens (65+) made it to the polls. This gap is rather large for such an important event in our country, and should not be taken lightly, however I do not believe it is enough to warrant a stereotype for all young people. In many states, the percentage of young voters for that election was well above the national average. Roughly 48% of all Floridian’s in this age range voted for a major political party in this election, and the same demographic in Missouri had a turnout of 56%. 

Civic responsibilities go past filling out a ballot, however. Many would agree that military service is one of the most honorable ways to serve this country, and recruitment offices target demographic is young people. Looking at the two aforementioned states, Missouri and Florida, the two of them together make up for 9.7% of all recruits in 2013 according to the DoD. These states also have more recruits per thousand 18-24 year olds then most of the rest of the country. In an interview with Business Insider, Nate Christensen, a DoD spokesman, tried to pinpoint an exact reason on why some states have higher recruitment numbers, saying, “One reason might be exposure to large military bases in states where there are higher enlistment rates.” This reasoning, however, does not fully explain why these states have higher overall civic participation in the 18-24 year old age range.

Another possible reasoning could stem from the electoral college system. Battleground states, or states that are typically not assumed to lean towards one political party, always seem to decide elections, meaning that young voters in other states could feel as if their vote has no power. Similarly, citizens in states with a larger number of electoral votes will feel more obligated to go to the polls since their state accounts for a larger percentage of the nation’s votes. It is also important to note that the two aforementioned states voted differently in the presidential election, suggesting that young adult participation has nothing to do with political affiliation. In any scenario, however, the stereotype that young adults disregard civil responsibilities in our nation stems from a lack of meaningful exposure to our country’s many political outlets. I believe that more work needs to be done by politicians and Government agencies to increase exposure in all areas of responsibility in our country.