McDonald's has made few menu changes in recent years, instead focusing on improving operations in a world where delivery, pickup and drive-through have grown in importance.
The chain has added select items like its viral Grimace Shake, which took over social media. That clever use of nostalgia offered a vibrantly colored beverage to get the most attention with the least amount of effort.
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In addition, McDonald's (MCD) has leveraged its celebrity-orders promotions, where it simply sells what big names like Travis Scott, Saweetie, J Balvin and BTS order when they eat at the chain.
That's similar to the chain's "As Featured In" promotion, where it shows off "a collection of fan-favorite menu items that have made iconic appearances throughout film, television and music," as a news release puts it.
Both those promotions are brilliant because they enable the chain to promote something special without actually adding anything new to the menu. That in turn enables the chain to seem as if it's keeping things fresh while not adding any complexity to its kitchens.
McDonald's has, however, sprinkled in some new menu items, and beverages have played a big part in that. Now, the chain will bring back three customer-favorite beverages to celebrate the weather getting warmer around the country.
Image source: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
McDonald's goes sweet and southern
While McDonald's has kept its menu reasonably stable and has not offered a lot of new items, it has selectively added limited-time-offer beverages. In addition to the Grimace Shake, the chain also brings back its Shamrock Shake every year for the St. Patrick's Day season.
Last year, McDonald's also added some regional beverage favorites to its menus nationwide, and it's going to do the same thing this year.
"McDonald's just brought back their premium lemonade with two tea lemonade mixes as we start getting out of the cold, dead winter," the Snackolator Instagram page reported.
The company has not provided any information about the new beverages, but it often releases new products before posting anything about them.
"My local store has them today but it sounds like they're rolling out to participating markets this week where you can get their premium lemonade that contains real lemon juice, bits of lemon pulp, and is made with real cane sugar," the site reported.
"In addition to the lemonade, @mcdonalds has a mix with unsweetened iced tea and a southern-style tea mixed with lemonade,"
McDonald's has been focusing on getting better
While McDonald's hasn't added many new items, it has made changes. It recently rolled out improved burgers nationwide and it tweaked the Big Mac.
Most of the changes, however, have occurred behind the scenes. Chief Executive Chris Kempczinski discussed this on the chain's fourth-quarter-earnings call.
"Focusing on the fundamentals of creating an exceptional customer experience has delivered operational improvements, improved service times, and increased customer satisfaction across almost all of our major markets," the executive said.
"Our Accelerating the Arches strategy is working, fueling over 30% comparable sales growth since 2019, and our MCD growth pillars enable us to remain agile in response to changing customer needs."
"Accelerating the Arches" is a global campaign to improve McDonald's operations and better serve customers. Kempczinski cited the growth of his chain's digital operations as a key part of that strategy.
"For example, we've expanded loyalty to 50 markets around the world and reached over 20 billion in annual loyalty systemwide sales in 2023," he said. "Our user base continues to grow with over 150 million users that have been active in the last 90 days, making us one of the largest loyalty programs in the world."
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