BUSINESS ENGLISH ESSAY
How Burger King does manage
its bad image?
Numerous companies have had to deal with the negative outcomes of
inappropriate advertising policies. Some of them had also a bad image because of
their internal management system and had to invest in advertisement to bring back the
customers. We could use various examples: Nike’s products manufactured by
children, Coca-Cola’s violent use of managerial power in Colombia plants,
Disneyland’s anti-American boycott during the opening of its French park in 1992, or
McDonald’s global image, which is criticized for encouraging obesity even now, after
having made different measures in order to promote nutritional awareness.
We will study here the case of one of the biggest fast-food industry companies
and determine how its advertising policy avoids the common traps McDonald’s fell
into.
Since its beginnings in 1954, Burger King has experienced an outstanding
growth, as stated in High School Operations Research website (1). In order to have an
advantage on its competitors, notably Wendy’s ， Kentucky Fried Chicken and
McDonald’s, the company has adopted different successful tactics. As we are
focussing here on its publicity campaigns, it is relevant to put the emphasis on the
comparative advertisements Burger King made to benefit from its main rivals’
weaknesses, well described on a Cambridge University Press webpage (2). In these
TV spots (which were shown between 1995 and 1996), the firm compared its own
burgers to the opponents’ products.
However, most of Burger King advertising programs made between 1980 and
2002 were unsuccessful and did not permit the brand to achieve its targets, which
were attempts to build a solid identity the firm lacked of, according to Wikipedia and
its annex sources (3). Moreover, these failures, which supported by a major
investment, were also creating a competitive disadvantage, of which Wendy’s
benefitted from in 1986. Effectively, during this time Wendy’s tried a new motto,
“Where’s the beef?” which Burger King answered with: “Where’s herb?”
Unfortunately for BG, it did not have the impact it was supposed to have.
This specific flop leads us to analyse the current BG strategy towards
McDonald’s; instead of fighting a marketing decision with another similar or even
opposite marketing decision, BG has simply developed the habit not to strike back
Nonetheless, there has been a noticeable exception to that, as explained in the book
Marketing Strategy in 1998 (4). As Burger King copied the Big Mac creating the “Big
King”, McDonald’s nastily replied with the “Big ‘n Tasty”, which directly imitates the
Whopper.
In the past, BG tried to expand its segmentation but lost customer awareness,
which led to improper advertising campaigns. For instance, their total market share in
1993 was much lower than McDonald’s (6.1 % for BK, 15.6% for Mc Donald’s)
because they forgot to put the stress on their main product – the Whopper – in their
ads, whereas McDonald’s did, as explained on echeat.com (5).
The situation has changed since then, as in 2007 the company produced a
series of curious video clips, both for TV and Internet, called “The Whopper freakout”. In this stylish attempt to generate a long-term relationship with the customer, we
can see consumers progressively getting angry as they realize their favourite BG dish
– the whopper – is no longer available (6).
If Burger King’s adverts were at times detrimental to its turnover, McDonald’s
campaigns were known to be controversial but successful. We might wonder: how
come a company which is in a scapegoat position and has a global negative image
keeps a leading place in the fast-food industry? The common ethical debate which
McDonald’s still has to deal with, along with the growing crowd of its detractors, may
be more strong and accurate than Burger King’s precisely because of its dominating
condition. If so, we could argue BK advertising and sponsorship policies, more
prudent and diplomatic, are a potentially responsible choice.
However, some attacks and claims made at Mc Donald’s, such as Morgan
Spurlock’s 2004 documentary Super Size Me, showing the health risks of a regular
fast-food diet, or mcspotlight.org website (7), which provides a huge list of articles
illustrating McDonald’s marketing mistakes, could possibly aim at any other fast-food
company, Burger King included. The impact of these unsettling attempts is noticeable,
as McDonald’s Super Size Option, which permitted the customer to increase the size
of his meal, was withdrawn six weeks after the release of the film. Nevertheless, the
fast-food giant declared it was not a consequential decision.
As for Burger King, a few errors in its advertising campaigns have also been
pointed out. For example, the firm has asked under-developed countries’ citizens to
taste a Whopper and a Big Mac in order to make an advantageous comparison in a
2008 TV spot. This clip was judged “outrageous” by a member of the Institute of
Human Nutrition, as stated on nydailynews.com (8).
McDonald’s have often being criticized for its advertising policies towards
children, and so did Burger King, as mentioned in a 2006 electronic article published
on brandrepublic.com (9). What we might question here is the educative role hold by
parents: do they have the responsibility of teaching their children the dangers of fastfoods, or is it this task reserved to the fast-food leaders?
McDonald’s initial approach was subtle but clever: while kids were attracted
by its outside park and its Happy Meal, their mothers were insidiously dragged to the
restaurant. This policy gave the company a significant competitive advantage. Burger
King keeps away from certain ethical matters when not making its children policy the
centre of attention.
As we studied most of all previous marketing policies, let’s turn to what
happens nowadays to BK. The company recently used SpongeBob’s franchise to
promote its Kids Meals on a TV advert. On one hand, the spot was condemned by
specialists because it shown sexual (or, should we write, sexy) content, inappropriate
in such a context. On the other hand, as stated in a topical article from the Washington
Post (10), BK heads claimed that it was mainly adult-targeted.
The problems get more serious when, in order to support the sales of the brand
new Texican Whopper (which is, as the name suggests, a combination of Texan and
Mexican food), Burger King employs Mexican’s flag in a way judged offending by
officials (11). If BK’s campaigns become reprimanded by politics, the impact on sales
could be dramatically negative.
As a conclusion, we should consider the role played by the media (Which
includes IT communications) in labelling a marketing strategy. It would be easy in
this study to evaluate BK policies as being better or worse than McDonald’s or any
other competitor. Yet, it is not possible to objectively do so as the general image of a
given company is depicted on a subjective basis. Morals and ethics surely reflect the
social representation of a brand, but these kinds of value differ depending on
individuals’ opinions or cultural orientations.
REFERENCES
(1) Article taken from: W. SWART and D. LUCCA. “Simulation Modeling Improves
Operations, Planning, and Productivity of Fast Food Restaurants.” Interfaces, 11:6
(1981), 35-47.
http://www.hsor.org/case_studies.cfm?name=burger_king
(2) First published on February 1997 in Advertising Age.
cambridge.org/resources/0521526256/2392_Wilkinson_ADDITIONAL%20CASE
%20STUDIES.pdf
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burger_king
(4) Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998. O. C. FERREL, M. D. HARLINE, G. H.
LUCAS, D. LUCK, Marketing Strategy; p. 335.
(5) http://www.echeat.com/essay.php?t=25843
(6) http://www.whopperfreakout.com/index.html
(7) http://www.mcspotlight.org/issues/advertising/index.html
(8) M. TOWNSEND and S. GASKELL, December 2 2008.
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/12/01/2008-1201_using_poor_villagers_in_burger_king_tv_s.html
(9) A. DONOHUE, November 15 2006.
http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/604647/Burger-King-childrens-ad-ban/
(10) S. GARFINKLE, April 16 2009
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2009/04/what_do_you_think_of_the_bur
ge.html?wprss=parenting
(11) REUTERS Agency, April 14 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/burger-king-ad-in-spain-angersmexican-ambassador-1668362.html