The site, found at http://www.mcdonalds.com/ opens with the ubiquitous golden arches, and leads into a colourful picture of a McDonald's store.
Special care is also taken to interest children, with Ronald offering to take kids on a special tour of company information. There are also colouring-in games, animated images and a time machine of the McDonald's company history.
The burger giant also cashes in on kids' concerns about environmental destruction. "Kids rule at McDonald's," announces the McDonald's Earth Effort page. "So when you tell us, 'Hey, the earth is important' - we hear you."
On the subject of recycling, the company claims to have saved 10,000 tons of solid waste since 1990 by switching to paper packaging for Big Macs and bags for Happy Meals. "Conserving resources is solid gold at the Golden Arches," it says, pointing out that "many of our restaurants have installed super-efficient" lighting, kitchen equipment and heaters.
For adults, there is investor information, a stock purchasing plan and franchising information as well as more information about the company's strenous efforts to protect the earth's environment.
Critics may be disappointed however. The feedback page (in the Fun Stuff section) has little room for the expression of viewers' varied opinions. The form simply asks about reactions to the Web site, and enquires as to people's eating habits.
The subsidiary has invested in two 50:50 joint ventures with individual entrepreneurs in Bombay and Delhi, who will start operations with one outlet each in Bombay and Delhi."
In an act of self-abnegation worthy of the great eastern religions, the world's biggest fast-food group is to open its first beef-free restaurants. The branches will be in Delhi and Bombay, where the Hindu faithful regard the cow as a sacred beast."
But within an hour of learning about the coupon, Burger King headquarters in Miami told the operator to withdraw the offer. There were 320 murders and 1,200 shootings in the city last year."
McDonald's has never got its teeth into the Italian market. Since its arrival in the country in 1985 it has succeeded in opening only 38 outlets. About half of those have opened in the past 18 months, following the arrival of new management and a strategic link-up with the Agip chain of filling stations. This made its purchase of the Burghy chain a strategic necessity and helps account for the generous price paid.
The difficulties McDonald's has encountered makes it one of the more illustrious victims of Italy's famed bureaucracy, capable of halting in its tracks even an aggressive multinational by denying it the necessary licences to open. Burghy, with its local contacts, had more luck with the bureaucrats."
