MARGOT TORRES
VP – MARKETING
MCDONALD’S

Education: A.B. Psychology, Ateneo de Manila University

What makes your brand different from others? What makes it unique?

What’s going for us is we are one of the most loved brands in the world. Working for a company with a mega-brand like that is very inspiring especially if you’re in marketing. McDonald’s has always been known for quality, service, cleanliness, and value. That’s a McDonald’s term: QSC + V. Everybody’s guided by those principles. We assure our customers that the place and food are clean and the food is good.

McDonald has 244 branches in the Philippines and can be found in 180 countries.

It really caters to all markets A-D, from ages 0-85.

In the beginning, it adopted the model from the US. For the first time, it opened everybody’s eyes to fastfood. It became the model of [every fast food] that you see today. From AB, it went down to broad C and now to D. Several factors contributed to that.

One is distribution. Lumalabas na siya sa Metro Manila. Key cities na rin: Cebu, Davao, Baguio, Pangasinan. We also introduced locally developed products that are not available in other countries but are also Filipino-inspired, like Burger McDo which is a more affordable burger that uses a sweet sauce. Then you have McSpaghetti which children just love. Then you have Chicken McDo, our fastest selling product, you know that the Philippines is fried chicken country.

What are the challenges facing your industry now and how do you meet them?

We operate in the IEO (informal eating out) industry that is not fine dining. Our competition does not just consist of other quick-service (QSR) restaurants. The QSR segment has, in what we call terms of visits or eating out, has shrunk from 50 percent of the total eating out to 30 percent. Because it shifted to other IEO places like the carinderia and the rolling stores. Then there were the convenience stores which were opened during the wee hours of the morning. Then it shifted to bakeries and doughnut shops and these are not your branded ones. These are the unnamed ones selling cheese bread for ten bucks. There are just so many options already.

On the other hand, mas maraming kumakain sa labas. You eat more times in a day including the midnight snack. May mga young adults who go home tired from commuting, magluluto pa ba sila?

The other challenge specific to McDonald’s is that the number of stores we have is only half of the market leader’s. Our distribution is at a disadvantage at the moment. We are addressing that by opening stores in better, strategic locations.

We don’t want to saturate an area where you don’t want to eat in each other’s markets.

A viable area is one that can sustain the sales day in day out. McDonald’s is not a Disneyland where you just go one time and just for special occasions. It’s an everyday fastfood restaurant that offers a wonderful experience aside from great food. Hindi lang weekends lang kapag dinadala ang mga bata, or birthday or Christmas. If the trading area has no offices or schools or hospitals, mahirap iyon.

We have superior delivery service. We have online, SMS. You can order through SMS now and pay through your mobile phone. Delivery is your way of bringing food to the customer without a store in the area. We also have dessert kiosks at the MRT and the malls, which serve desserts specifically.

Please tell us about your career path.

There are two big chunks in my career. The first phase is the consumer marketing phase. Fresh out of college, I joined Unilever then known as the Philippine Refining Company. I stayed there for five years, I started in research, went to brand, did media and brand management and product management, learned the ropes. After that, I had a short stint in an ad agency. I gave up and have never gone back since. It’s not just my cup of tea. From the agency, I went back to client management. I did a distributor stint with Zuelig. That ends the first phase.

At that point, I felt I had done agency, research, brand, beverage, and personal care. I stopped and took a sabbatical for two months. I told myself that I will go into a new industry when I return.

When I came back, I was deciding upon credit cards and telecommunications. I joined Philippine Wireless, the company behind Pocketbell, and spent six years there. I did marketing and sales in Pocketbell; that was my first exposure to sales which I think helped me a lot. I believe that if you have not done sales, you cannot be a great marketing person.

Then I got married. Kailangan maghanap ng pera! (laughs) I moved to Extelcom, the only analog phone company left; it was owned by a multinational cellular company that gave it a little more prestige. From there, they asked me to set up Express Internet. This was my first exposure to dot-com.

At that point, I was given a chance to join Edsamail, a growing dot-com company that was gonna go public. At that time, it was a whole adventure wherein we all thought we would be like Bill Gates. I was the General Manager for Edsamail.

I told myself – I was 33 years old then – “ngayon ko na gagawin.” Because if it doesn’t work, at 35, I can go back to the corporate world. After a year, we got the top ten advertisers in our client list. The business model was fantastic. It’s free email with advertising as revenue, until the Board changed the model. It was frustrating because I believed so much in the vision of Edsamail. I had the right background as media, advertising, marketing, and technology, that I could make it the GMA-7 of the Internet. That was my dream. But other forces took over and they wanted to charge at that point. We were just gonna be another ISP. It wasn’t my line to handle operations and worry about collections.

I went back into marketing in a pharmaceutical company in 2002. I think I moved too early because I felt that the pace was not too exciting. I was then offered by Smart Telecommunications to join their team. It was the most exciting proposition that I left the balanced life of the pharmaceutical company and joined Smart as the Senior Marketing Manager of Postpaid and E-load. I started the projects on Infinity and Smart Kids and continued Addict Mobile.

After five months of not seeing my kids, I said this was not for me. A headhunter came along. They told me, “McDonald’s invited us to pitch. You are our only candidate. If you say no, we will not pitch.” This was 2003. I was having a hard time balancing my family and career. So, I said, “Go and pitch.” By 2003, I moved to McDonalds. By 2004, we had our best year ever. We’ve hit our sales and operating income target and surpassed it. And in the history of our company since we’ve been here, they’ve given incentives to their employees.

What makes you marketable? You don't seem to have a problem finding very good work.

[It comes from] the discipline of Unilever. When you’re a fresh grad from this company, and Unilever gets you from the top five percent of your batch, lamang ka na. The foundation is right. Maganda ang discipline, proseso, process management, basic marketing principles. Ang kailangan mo baliin is the idealism that everything works in the company. Because everything is so systematic in Unilever. Kung hindi ka mag-a-adopt, patay ka. You can’t stay there [in your new company after Unilever] and cry like a spoiled brat.

That’s why headhunters wait for these fresh grads [from Unilever] to move to another company so the rigidity will be softened. For example, galing ako sa Unilever, pumunta ako sa agency---(grins at the memory) klieyente ko San Miguel Corp, maniwala ka, mayabang pa ako sa manager nila! In my twenties, I’d offer to teach him how to write an advertising brief! But after nabali ka sa ibang kumpanya, lumalalim ang experience mo.

The other aspect now is that you will find very people who understand technology and marketing and can put that together. Kaunti na lang who have that discipline that is in Unilever and jumped into technology.

I feel that I am very effective in McDonald’s because I have the discipline of consumer marketing and the perspective of service. I can marry the two. That’s why I feel I have found my place.

What gives you your edge?

We believe in research. That’s why we’re in touch with our customers. I believe in talking to the people in the stores. I don’t limit myself to this industry. I’m interested in what’s happening in telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, I pick up on a lot of things and current events.

What advice would you give young supervisors and managers who want to rise the same level you do?

Let me answer that by telling you a story. One of my people left. I was grooming her but I didn’t stop her. She wanted to go to a telco. She said, “McDonald’s has been my main marketing experience for three years. I want to enrich my marketing knowledge by going to another industry.” I could not argue.

My advice would be: whether you stay in the company forever or move around, it’s always to push the envelope. That’s the only way creative ideas come about. And you should never be afraid of change.

I never accept the answer, “Iyan ang ginawa namin dati” or “Hindi iyan nag-work dati.” Because everything changes. Maybe because at that time, it was too early. The minute you feel it is a routine, you should get scared already.

My greatest fear is to be a dinosaur. During one time, I was a young VP, the fresh blood in a family-owned corporation where the VPs rose from the ranks. In one management committee meeting, we were talking about the second-line of managers. They were complaining about the quality of the people, and I blurted out, “The problem is, we don’t believe in this philosophy: training your replacement.”

What else would you like to do? Where do you go from here?

Here in McDonald’s, I personally believe that this brand can be number one in this country. That is my personal goal.

After that, if I feel that marketing has become a routine and I’ve trained my replacement, I’m interested in the franchising/real-estate side of the industry. What’s interesting is the customer who invests P25 million.

I want to grow my roots in McDonald’s. There are so many avenues you can take. One, although not on the top of my list, is that you can go to another country that has McDonald’s and work on something that is regional or global in scope.

Although I know that my specialization and expertise in marketing, I don’t want to grow vertical in marketing. I prefer to know the rest [of the industries].

THINK YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A HIGH-POWERED EXECUTIVE? Send your resume to eportfolio@jobsdb.com.ph.

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