McDonald's "Test marketing".

Factual Questions
1

This is more of a marketing question than a food question so it’s in GQ.

McDonald’s is test marketing 1/3 pound angus burgers with various toppings here in California. They aren’t bad, but that isn’t the reason for the post.

They are advertising that the burgers are being test marketed! But isn’t of the important parts of the methodology of test marketing is that the test market shouldn’t KNOW it’s a test market? That knowledge would alter the consumer’s propensity to consume the product, invalidating the study, would it not?

Any marketing mavens out there? Smells like a gimmick to me.

2

How would the market not know it’s a test market? It would be pretty easy to figure that out. Better to get some promotional value out of it.

3

I suppose it might help sales slightly if people knew that they could try something nobody else in the country can.

4

I have no idea what McDonalds outside of my area is selling. My area is a big test area so I usually assume new stuff is being tested.

5

Possibly, but this isn’t a test of two seemingly-similar products, requiring a blind study (i.e. McDo experiments with leaner beef in California while keeping the rest of the country on the regular product and seeing if sales are affected). Nobody’s going to buy and eat an Angus and not realize it, nor is it likely that someone who dislikes the Angus is going to keep buying it. By announcing it as a test product (and McDo has certainly done it’s share of experimenting over the years - remember McPizza?) they can observe an early spike in consumption in the test area then see if demand sharply drops (a failure), levels off (possibly not worth pursuing) or increases (a potential hit).

McDonald’s using a gimmick?! Say it ain’t so, Ronald!