By manipulating stock price they change the dividend play. I suppose they are attempting to instil the idea that they are not going anywhere in the minds of investors.

IMO the issue McDonald's is facing is the degradation of its public image. Simply put, McDonald's is what homeless people eat(low in price, high in calories). In the last two or three decades new burger joints have emerged that fill the gap between the dollar menu burger and the $10 restaurant burger. Places like Culver's and In-and-Out have taken a larger slice of the _burger_. You can see them combating this with the aggressive advertising towards millennials; the trend-setters. The new non-GMO simple chicken sandwich is a glaringly obvious admittance that their prior adverts failed.

To fix McDonald's, their only option is to use their superior distribution network to produce marginally higher quality food that is on par with the aforementioned. The perceived public image will improve itself overtime.