Why McDonald’s is so successful
Stop in the restaurant area on an international airport and look around.
What you mostly see is 5 or 6 restaurants each positioned just by the other one. But the long lines are only at McDonald’s.
Children, tourists, pilots, stewards, asian people, indian people, white people, black people, airport staff, terrorists, whatever.
How is it possible that everybody likes McDonald’s food? Now if course it’s not the food itself. It’s the consistency.
If you’re hungry and you know you have a certain amount of time before you need to leave, the only thing that matters is no surprises now, please.
You’re just not in a situation to try an unknown restaurant if you 1) don’t know how much time you’ll need to spend there, 2) don’t know how the food is going to taste and 3) don’t want to risk leaving dissatisfied with unfilled expectations.
You’ll rather eat something totally generic. Not as tasty, but in 20 minutes, and with no surprises. McDonald’s has built a network of exactly same restaurant branches with exactly the same generic food all over the world, and you know it best, because no franchise is as widespread as theirs.
I’m curious to find out how “no surprises” analogy can be applied to other businesses as well.
