McDonald's gets 36% of its operating earnings from Europe, but Thompson cautions that it is not a monochromatic market, any more than the U.S. is. "Cross the U.S. from one end
to the other and there are some very different economic circumstances," he says, so the company has "different programs for different focal points."
Thompson also talks about the ad featuring a gay man and his father that ran in France (but won't run in the U.S., he avers), the need to balance store quality and growth, the fact that value will always be part of McDonald's equation (adjusted for inflation, he says McDonald's 89-cent hamburger is actually cheaper than the 15-cent offering of 1955), and why the company is a World Cup sponsor.
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