Sad tidings, folks: if you hadn’t already heard about this, the 99¢ Filet-o-Fish promotion at McDonald’s [MCD] finishes today, after a wildly successful run for a little over one week.
To many customers I’ve had a chance to talk with over the past several days during the promotion, as well as plenty of E-mails and IM’s from you (my gentle readers), it is extremely obvious that deals such as this one definitely excite and entice many people into dining at McD’s. So, while the Dollar Menu is a nice “regular” offering, it is campaigns like the 99¢ Filet-o-Fish promotion that can sustain fast food businesses in these times of severe economic recession.
Management Perspective
It makes sense to further explore other menu items to determine what can be used to continue bringing people into the stores. It is clear (and fairly reasonable) that immediate-term benefits of a discounted food product are readily identified and acted upon by the consumer base.
In contrast, longer-term benefits and “games of chance”, like the recent Monopoly game promotion, carry higher marketing and advertising costs but without necessarily a guaranteed linear growth pattern to consumer spending behavior, specifically due to the significantly higher cost of entry.
For example, in many markets, the $3.29 cost (not including sales and dining taxes) of the Big Mac Value Meal would be the lowest cost to acquire game pieces, short of the write-in campaigns required by non-consumers to get the limited quantity of “free” game pieces. However, the cost of the 99¢ Filet-o-Fish sandwich is self-explanatory: pay the $0.99 cost (again, not including sales and dining taxes), and you will have your food, ready to eat and enjoy. Also, given the public’s mistrust of the Monopoly game promotion due to past evidence of fraud, there is already a negative impression that presents a difficult obstacle toward consumer acceptance.
Good luck, McDonald’s. Keep at it. 
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