McDonald's says US sales slowed after value deal push fell short ⁠58%

8/4/2026, 2:20:33 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Fundamental Attribution Error, Optimism Bias, and Ambiguity (Equivocation), with Self-Serving Bias as the most egregious example at 35.1% saturation with 163 hits. Analysis detected 1,179 faulty-reasoning hits from 464 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 47.5% and a BS Rank of ⁠58% (12,054 of 28,193 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 57.20% of the article peer group.

McDonald's sales growth came in slower than expected when the company released its second quarter earnings on Tuesday, with leaders pointing to execution lapses they say hampered its push to promote value deals aimed at lower-income consumers. 
CEO Chris Kempczinski said that weak promotion of value deals and a pullback in the use of digital deals, such as its buy-one-add-one promos, led to a drop in visits from loyal customers – noting that accounted for about two-thirds of the shortfall in customer traffic for the quarter. 
Comparable sales for McDonald's largest market grew 0.8%, below analysts' estimates of a 1.06% increase, according to data compiled by LSEG. 
The pace of the fast-food giant's U.S. growth was 2.5% last year. 
"We don't have a strategy problem. 
We simply didn't execute at the level we needed to in the second quarter," Kempczinski said. 
MCDONALD'S BRINGING BACK FRIED APPLE PIE TO CELEBRATE AMERICA'S 250TH BIRTHDAY 
The CEO said that while McDonald's has "restored our overall value and affordability leadership, our restaurant level results show that execution was inconsistent across the system," noting that the best performing restaurants executed the affordable price menu plan and saying they "need the same level of execution in all our restaurants." 
He went on to say that about one-thirds of the McDonald's system's restaurants didn't execute against the guidance for the every day affordable price menu, adding that the company will educate franchisees about the importance of complying with that pricing scheme which will factor into business reviews. 
MCDONALD'S TESTING AI DRIVE-THRU ORDER-TAKING SYSTEM CALLED ARCHIQ AT FIVE LOCATIONS ACROSS COUNTRY 
Kempczinski also said that restaurant teams were overwhelmed by the number of deployments McDonald's put forward in the quarter, which impacted efficiency and worsened customer service times , while marketing programs didn't deliver against expectations. 
McDonald's CFO Ian Borden said that in the near term, the company is launching more national digital flash offers starting next week to "reenergize our high-frequency customers," while also targeting the chain's most loyal customers with more personalized digital offerings. 
MCDONALD'S UNVEILS NEW GROWTH STRATEGY TO WIN BACK CUSTOMERS 
Borden added that the company is already taking steps to simplify restaurant operations by eliminating several non-customer-facing activities over the remainder of the year. 
As part of the company's push to reinvigorate its growth, McDonald's named Skye Anderson to lead its U.S. business, betting on an executive with extensive experience across operations and international markets. 
Anderson has worked for the company for 26 years, which includes time as the U.S. chief operating officer. 
In her new role she will oversee about 14,000 restaurants in the U.S. and guide McDonald's new turnaround strategy. 
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE 
Reuters contributed to this report. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 4.3%Confirmation Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 3.2%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 8.6%FoxBusiness: 4.0%Availability Heuristic8.6%This article: 6.7%FoxBusiness: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic6.7%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.6%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 1.3%FoxBusiness: 3.5%Overconfidence Bias1.3%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 12.3%Framing Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 1.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 5.2%FoxBusiness: 1.1%Status Quo Bias5.2%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 26.3%FoxBusiness: 8.4%Optimism Bias26.3%This article: 1.3%FoxBusiness: 1.9%Pessimism Bias1.3%This article: 18.1%FoxBusiness: 7.6%Negativity Bias18.1%This article: 35.1%FoxBusiness: 4.3%Self-Serving Bias35.1%This article: 29.5%FoxBusiness: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error29.5%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 1.6%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.7%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 15.1%FoxBusiness: 3.6%Halo Effect15.1%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 2.6%FoxBusiness: 2.2%Recency Bias2.6%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.4%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.8%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.4%Straw Man0.0%This article: 6.7%FoxBusiness: 6.8%Appeal to Authority6.7%This article: 4.7%FoxBusiness: 1.5%False Dilemma4.7%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 1.1%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 10.1%FoxBusiness: 6.0%Hasty Generalization10.1%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.8%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 1.1%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 5.8%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 1.2%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 16.2%FoxBusiness: 4.2%Post Hoc (False Cause)16.2%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.4%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 2.3%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 18.5%FoxBusiness: 1.8%Ambiguity (Equivocation)18.5%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 18.1%FoxBusiness: 1.8%Unattributed Quote18.1%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 1.4%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 18.5%FoxBusiness: 3.9%Biased Writer Voice18.5%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 1.7%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 0.1%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%FoxBusiness: 2.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 11.4%FoxBusiness: 4.1%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…11.4%

464 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers58%attributed speech196writer words
Selected voice

Chris Kempczinski

100%flagged-word coverage
204 attributed words76% of attributed speech57% writer coverage
0%22.5%45.0%Unattributed Quote+41.2 ptsWriter: 0.0%Chris Kempczinski: 41.2%41.2%Biased Writer Voice+5.1 ptsWriter: 18.9%Chris Kempczinski: 24.0%24.0%Attempt to Sell a Product -6.6 ptsWriter: 6.6%Chris Kempczinski: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…

Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.