Beer at McDonalds?

When a business decides to go global, there are hundreds of factors it must consider to ensure it's success. One major factor it must focus on is adapting to consumer preferences and behaviors in each new location. While I was studying abroad in Seville, Spain, I had the opportunity to experience how McDonalds adapted its products to fit the Spanish consumer culture and behavior.

McDonalds in the U.S. has a menu that contains burgers, fries, shakes, soda-pop, and numerous other basic "American" foods. So, the first time I craved "American" food while I was abroad, my friends and I set out to find one of the few McDonalds in the area. As we were ordering our food off of the full Spanish menu, one word on the list of beverages jumped out at me. It was the word "cerveza," and for those of you who are unfamiliar with the Spanish language cerveza means beer. Yup, you read that right, they were serving beer in the McDonalds! Now, being that I had never experienced a McDonalds like this, I instantly became the "Typical American" that Europeans see and low-key hate by freaking out, taking a Snap Chat of the menu, and then taking a selfie with the beer I that ordered.

Once my initial excitement wore off, I began to wonder: Why didn't McDonalds in the U.S. jump on the opportunity to sell beer like Spain had?

It wasn't until I started learning about consumer behavior that I found the answer to my own question. This answer relates to the adaptations, such as legality differences, that a business must make to successfully enter into a new market. The rationale McDonalds used to decide to include beer on the menu in Spain goes further than just the different legality procedures for alcohol between the two countries. In fact, it relates to how beer in Spain is a casual social drink that is consumed at nearly all hours of the day, especially with meals, by majority of the population. In order to become a part of the Spanish culture, without fully losing its brand identity, McDonalds maintained majority of its American menu and then added the beer to accommodate the Spanish social culture.

By experiencing this all first-hand I have become even more interested in the impacts of consumer behavior studies and findings. More specifically I am fascinated by how savvy businesses, such as McDonalds, in the U.S. are able to alter their products accordingly to fit cultures in other locations.