"We're not on our game."
That's how Steve Easterbrook, the recently appointed CEO of McDonald's, summed up the fast food giant's recent performance during a presentation on Monday. And for good reason: McDonald's has fallen into a rut. It consistently misses Wall Street earnings estimates and faces mounting competition from newer, swankier burger chains, including Shake Shack, which went public in January.
Easterbrook, who took over as CEO in March, offered the first glimpse into his turnaround plans for the company with a video presentation Monday. His recipe for reinvigorating growth essentially boiled down to accelerated franchising and reorganizing operations to be more nimble and innovative.
Another Easterbrook goal: creating more "brand excitement."
Excitement -- or emotion of any kind -- was, however, conspicuously lacking from Easterbrook's even, careful speech. For 23 minutes, Easterbrook talked at the screen, staring straight ahead, rarely blinking and gesturing blandly with his hands while only occasionally raising his eyebrows for emphasis. He stood in an empty, beige McDonald's hallway decorated with generic artwork. The camera kept locked on Easterbrook's face, only breaking away to show a gray slide deck with numbers from time to time.
Even as far as corporate pep talks go, it seemed subdued. From McDonald's, which needs to turn around in a big way, analysts are looking for more fire.
On the whole, R.J. Hottovy, a senior analyst with Morningstar, characterized the presentation as "somewhat underwhelming" and lamented a lack of product details.
Investors seemed to agree: the stock dipped by more than 1% in early trading after its release.
"It's practical, but for a company that had been preaching in its last earnings update about taking more risk, it certainly seems to be lacking that," said Hottovy. "It doesn't seem like it's taking a leadership position, just catching up."
In act of Monday masochism, we sat through the full video to pull out Easterbrook's key quotes about the future of one of America's most famous businesses. For the record: yes, these are all different pictures taken throughout his speech.
"Our business model strength is enduring, but no business or brand has a divine right to succeed. And the reality is our recent performance has been poor. The numbers don’t lie."
"This is a global turnaround."
"Create brand excitement"
"I'm not interested in average for this business"
"We're not on our game."
Well that sounds easy enough..
"We're unleashing our entrepreneurial spirit..."
"My immediate priority for the restructured business is returning critical market to growth..”
"optimize today & shape tomorrow"
