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.