A Facelift for Burger King?

In a study released by Technomic, a consulting and research firm for the food industry, Wendy’s beat out Burger King as the second favorite fast food chain in the United States. According to this study, in 2011 Wendy’s recorded sales of $8.5 billion, Burger King reported $8.4 billion, and McDonald’s, the top fast food company, brought in $34.2 billion. Burger King has responded with a new marketing campaign highlighting their new menu items including fruit smoothies, chicken strips, and a new garden salad. To promote these new menu items they looked to celebrities such as David Beckham, Selma Hyak and Jay Leno. Here are three of the new commercials below:

               I think that this is a little too little a little too late, and I fear that Burger King is following in the trap of following McDonald's and falling in their shadow. All these items are available at McDonald's, are not actually as healthy as they are being portrayed, and are not specific to Burger King. If I were working in their marketing department and our goal was to revamp the menu, I would try to find an item that was not already being offered at my competitors restaurant.

               I also don't think that offering these items will help them to increase their popularity. I think that they should go back to their roots, and go back to the idea that the customer is the "king" or wears the crown. I think they should be worrying about their image and their branding, and could use this opportunity to talk about the value of their product and how they put the customer first.

             I wonder if this will make a difference in their sales this year, because I doubt this will make any type of long-term change for the company as a whole. It will be interesting to see the results. Watching these commercials doesn't make me think that Burger King has anything special in comparison to it's competition.

Leadership Lessons from The Godfather

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of my father's favorite movie, The Godfather, Justin Moore, CEO and founder of Axcient, commented on how he learned how to be a successful entrepreneur from the movie.
Lessons in Leadership from The Godfather

I personally worked for Mohegan Sun a while back, and I feel that they are an employment leader in Connecticut. They represent all 5 of the lessons learned from this article.

1. Build a powerful community. 
Mohegan Sun has made some pretty impressive partners in the entertainment world. They have three Michael Jordan restaurants, two Bobby Flay restaurants, they have a Jasper White's Summer Shack, and a Todd English's restaurant Tuscany. They also have a collaboration with the Blues Brothers, a local radio station and many more. Any time that they hold a large event such as an anniversary - they call upon these celebrities to not only attend but to help bring attention to Mohegan Sun.


2. Hold people accountable. 
They may not like to advertise it, but in the past few years they have suffered due to the economy. Instead of falling apart, they made some strategic moves and performed some small scale layoffs. They hold their employees accountable, and started at the top for the layoffs. In comparison to their competition in the state which had highly publicized wide scale layoffs.


3. Don’t get emotional. 
When the competition built a grand new casino, Mohegan Sun didn't backdown. Instead they also expanded their offerings at a more financially manageable scale. Bringing in a Margaritaville, poker room, water wall, and new casino. Now today they are not as financially burdened by their expansion - unlike the competition.


4. Be decisive.
Mohegan Sun has strong leaders and depends on their management team to make important decisions.


5. Spend time with your family.
As an employee at Mohegan Sun the work-life balance was always promoted. I never felt that I had to choose between family and work, and was hardly ever asked to take work home with me. They were also flexible about the hours that you worked - which I am sure varies by department. I was able to work events and then take comp. time at other times. Even during work they did team building events, instead of after hours, to encourage a healthy working environment. 
Mohegan Sun Culture