Bigger and bingier: the business of more

Happy meals

Before it became the colossus of fast food with outposts in nearly every country, McDonald’s was a novel hamburger chain with a limited menu and an emphasis on low prices. A distinguishing feature was its rapid service, which hinted at the operational efficiency that would soon become a trademark of the concept.1

Ingredients were delivered fresh, including whole potatoes that were laboriously transformed in store into the brand’s signature French fries.2 The initial menu was almost quaint in its simplicity. Beverages came in just one size and contained seven ounces (200 ml), a little over half of a modern aluminum can. Fry portions were 2.4 ounces (68 g), less than the smallest option on today’s menu. The hamburger that was the main attraction wouldn’t look out of place in a current child’s meal—though the marquee did encourage diners to buy them by the bagful.

The combination proved to be very compelling, as customers flocked to the new restaurants. Signage out front touted the overall number of hamburgers served, ticking up steadily into the millions and then billions until management finally decided to stop keeping track. The implication of these figures was clear: the massive quantities sold showed that McDonald’s was worthy of a visit.

For a while the basic approach was enough to sustain rapid growth, but efficiency considerations soon dictated that ingredients be processed off-site as much as possible and shipped frozen, which preserved the model of large quantities at low prices.

As the chain’s footprint grew larger its menu and portions began to expand along with it, assuming the premise that if a little of something was good, a lot more would be even better. Consumers bought into this logic, which reached its apotheosis in 1992 with a new “supersize” meal option.

For a small charge, those who succumbed to the cashier’s upsell would end up with French fries increased to a triple portion based on the historic size. The drink included as part of the deal was a staggering six times the size of the original serving and, depending on the exact choice, could include a pancreas-obliterating 125 grams of sugar.3

This business model of more, cheaper, and faster turned out to be very profitable, and for years McDonald’s and its peers rode the wave to record growth. This trajectory eventually and inevitably bumped up against some problems, as the rising prominence of fast food paralleled a rise in obesity and associated diseases. Experts in public health pointed to McDonald’s and the like as key drivers behind the costly health issues now manifesting themselves.

A common response to critics was that such businesses merely provided what people wanted. Judging strictly from revenues this was true, and also not sustainable given the basic realities of human biology. Amid changing consumer sentiments and the desire to head off further backlash McDonald’s started experimenting with healthier and fresher menu items, and in 2004 quietly dropped the supersize option.4

Body and mind

Media consumption may not have had its supersize moment yet, but it appears to be tracing a similar arc. In an earlier era dominated by network television, programs were watched according to the weekly rhythms set by broadcasters. Most countries had only a handful of options that were quickly exhausted.

While cable television introduced hundreds of new channels, the internet shifted control to the viewer, who now has ready access to functionally unlimited amounts of content.5 No party has benefited more from this phenomenon than Netflix, which has invested huge sums both in acquiring existing properties and creating its own.

It pioneered the concept of binge watching, the media equivalent of chain smoking. A proprietary recommendation algorithm draws from the behavior of millions of subscribers6 worldwide to identify the programs most likely to catch their interest, and automatic playing of subsequent episodes means that a casual viewing of one show can easily morph into a streak that takes up an evening.

The volumes of content are only growing, with tens of thousands of hours available already and thousands more added each year, such that no one could possibly hope to ever see it all in a lifetime. Yet the competition continues to escalate, with other streaming services pumping billions of dollars into new series that will at best be viewed by a fraction of their subscriber bases.

Even the physical structures we inhabit are not immune to the pull of more. The average area of a new home in the United States swelled from roughly 1,700 to 2,600 square feet (160 to 240 m²) between 1973 and 2018, even while family sizes have been falling. The result is that available space per person nearly doubled, despite few obvious changes in living patterns.

Bigger houses are more profitable for builders and the ecosystem that supports their buying and selling. Despite these incentives they are beginning to fall out of favor with millennials who prefer smaller homes in denser, walkable communities, which also happen to support patterns of living that have characterized humanity for generations.

In transportation, the global automotive industry has seen a marked shift away from smaller sedans towards larger, truck-like sport utility vehicles, despite the reality that their cargo hauling and off-road capabilities are rarely tested or needed.7 Those big vehicles can then be parked in the garages attached to those big houses. But there are signs that this model is also under strain, as emerging modes of transportation make ownership less compelling.

Slow and steady

The impetus to provide more and bigger offerings can be exceptionally profitable in the short term, but it isn’t always better. Most large organizations are forced to focus on growing immediately measurable dimensions—revenues, profits, customers, employees—even though these are at best intermediate metrics pointing to a longer-term mission. The economy becomes oriented around speed, unlimited choice, and the complete elimination of friction.

If a spoonful of sugar is good, how about 35? If one new television episode is compelling, how about watching entire seasons in an unbroken stretch while the sun rises and sets unnoticed behind your drawn curtains? If a guest bedroom is nice to have, how about a few spare rooms, including one exclusively for your occasional art projects? Eventually these approaches bump up against the limits of reality and experience.8

Many corporations made fortunes on the idea of ever faster and cheaper consumption, but societies gradually came to learn that the human body and mind have natural constraints. The ramifications of modern shifts in eating habits are becoming clear, and while the jury is still out on other models of binging it’s probable that society will experience some unintended consequences.

Unfettered consumption doesn’t lead to the kind of flourishing that ultimately creates long-term satisfaction, nor a sustainable business model. Sometimes friction is good, because it implicitly acknowledges limits. A day’s worth of calories or a week’s worth of television isn’t meant to be consumed in one sitting, no matter how much the short-term mind might rationalize it. Some consciously take the alternative approach, cultivating scarcity and deliberateness that may be less profitable, but can also be a superior option in the long run.9

During a return to equilibrium a business model may even come full circle. Newer restaurants touting the freshness of their options have started to eat away at the share of the giants. Even fast food chains are experimenting with older ways—in 2018 McDonald’s reintroduced fresh beef, which was the norm in the 1960s and is starting to become popular once again.

If your success is based on mainlining your offering straight to the pleasure centers of the brain, or of maximizing volumes at all costs, try taking the longer view and consider where that can lead.10 Understand how you might be disrupted by others that emphasize enduring, sustainable values—and ultimately, find ways to build on them yourself, even if there’s a cost.

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References

Mental Floss has a listicle highlighting some of the differences in McDonald’s in the 1960s.

The U.S. Census Bureau has extensive statistics on housing construction and the rise in sizes.

Seattle Met has an interesting related story on airport and mall staple Cinnabon, which was unapologetically designed to overcome willpower with its hyper-caloric frosted dough bombs.