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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBURGER KING AT RIVERSIDE PUD - PRELIMINARY - 37-89 - MEDIA - CORRESPONDENCE• ADVERTISING/By RICHARD GIBSON and BARBARA MARSH Burger KingRevives Hard ' Sell for Service It's back to the future at Burger King. Nine months after acquiring the fast- food 6THIS is about successful chain, Grand Metropolitan thinks it knows how to get Burger King on track „ retailing In the 19905,' SAYS again: By letting the customer, and the franchise Burger King's chief executive the operator, have it their way. Sound familiar? while not resurrecting _ ._...'.>`A of fast-food chain's new ad campaign. the "Have It Your way" slogan, that Burger `Do whatever it takes to create King once used successfully, a positive, memorable experience.' i Grand Met says it ' ll c) will "break the rules" and become Barry Gibbons i %I unconventional to lure customers back The new ad campaign, conceived by profit of $4.7 million on sales of $415.8 mil - into Burger King's Saatchi & Saatchi and D'Arcy Masius Ben- lion. That followed an unprofitable year - i;j ,g1l 5,989 stores world- ton & Bowles, was unveiled in Miami. The when Pillsbury, as a defensive measure to wide The idea is to to campaign goes under the slogan "Some- times You've Gotta Break the Rules." Re- deter Grand Met, for a time suggested spinning off Burger King, infuriating fran- please the customer. "This is about su cessful retailing in the 1990s," says Barry inforcing that idea, the world's second-largest restaurant company says it chisees. Despite its external message that Gibbons, Burger King's chief executive. "Do will reward crew and other employees for daring to do things differently by featuring "Sometimes You've Gotta Break the Rules," Grand Met is keeping Burger King whatever it takes to create a positive, memorable experience." some workers in a commercial. Individual crews also are being encouraged to design stores on a tight leash. That's a big change from the past, when store Whether Burger King can deliver on its their own work uniforms. operators were telling Pillsbury what to do..Now, under promise, and whether that notion will Franchisees still smarting from Pills- Grand Met, says one veteran franchisee, stand up against the overwhelming mar- bury's fitful management of the chain are "holding "they come in and say, `Here's what we're keting clout of giant McDonald's, much our breath," says Portland, Ore., doing, we expect you to applaud, and if less a lunch-hour rush with hurried pa- trons, is debatable. Yet Mr. Gibbons says operator Joseph Angel. "What's coming through [in the marketing campaign ] will you don't, we're still going to do it.' " To ensure that store operators get the Burger King hasn't lost market share in recent months and actually has begun be Feat, but the question is still out there: Can these guys execute?" message, Burger King has enlarged its field staff -and slashed several layers of turning a profit. Burger King has about 17% of the quick -service sandwich mar- Mr. Gibbons, who had run 2,000 Grand Met restaurants in Europe, insists he al- management bureaucracy back at head- quarters. Now, field representatives drop ket, ready has. He confirms that Burger King by each store every few days, clipboards will post a profit for the year ending Satur- in hand, to evaluate customer -oriented op - day and adds that he's cut 30% more in erations. Also, to make sure that cus- costs than initially anticipated. In the tomers have a direct line to the company, quarter ended March 31, the chain had a Please Turn to Page B6, Column I 0 • B6 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1989 MARKETING & MEDIA ADVERTISING New Campaign for Burger King Claims Service Is the Only Rule Continued From Page BI Burger King is installing a toll -free phone number for consumer feedback. one chronic complaint from customers has been the unpredictability of a Burger King visit. Sometimes the place is_ spar- kling clean, sometimes not. Even Mr. Gib- bons admits that until recently too few were watching "the unseen enemy": safety and cleanliness. Now, restaurant managers are supposed to check bath- rooms for cleanliness every 15 minutes during busy periods. Crew members also are told to wash their hands every hour or so with a sterilizer. "They're doing an excellent job in turn- ing the business around," says William Pothitos, a Montreal Burger King fran- chisee. ''They're encouraging the fran- chisees to get their businesses cleaned up, and they're setting an example within their own stores." Burger King, tapping Grand_ Met's financial strength, now offers third - party financing for operators who need help in upgrading store decor and land- sca in . Grand Met also is expanding the chain in the U.S. and abroad. In the past eight months, it added 110 domestic stores and 28 overseas. Mr. Gibbons says that a "sig- nificant number" of Wimpy's fast-food out- lets, which Grand Met recently bought in Britain, will be converted into Burger Kings. To help sell the new strategy, Burger King will spend about $215 million on mar- keting —roughly one-third of McDonald's budget —in its new fiscal year. "That's marginally up from where we were," says Gary Langstaff, who came over from rival Hardee's in April to revamp Burger King's marketing. Franchisees support the pro- motion with #`z of their gross sales each month. Much of that spending will go to win over kids as customers, Mr. Langstaff says. That effort —mindful of the tack ce- real makers have long taken —will begin in January. Franchisees say they've been told to expect to add clubhouses to their restaurants. Also coming: finger food, in- cluding party packs of chicken and fish, to round out the burger -heavy menu. Sand- wiches featuring barbecue and salsa flavors will be introduced shortly. To communicate the "break -the -rules" ad series, Burger King hired 10 musical acts —including Paul Shaffer and the World's Most Dangerous Band, crooner Mel Torme and blues singer John Lee Hooker —and let them write their own songs for radio spots. While abandoning the standardized jingle, that part of the campaign will be tied together with the line, "Sometimes you just gotta break the rules." TV spots feature the popular fast -cut approach to convey vignettes with surprise endings. In one, an aircraft carrier com- manding officer is seemingly in a combat situation, waiting for orders. They come in Burger King bags-, the crew has ordered out. Another spot, called "Wrong Num- ber," has a teen-ager getting a call on the mobile phone in his father's car from a girl with a sensual voice. Thinking she's di- aled a Burger King, the girl asks, "Do you deliver?" and the boy replies, "For you, sure." Mr. Langstaff was beaming over his ads but had some harsh words for his com- petition. "I think this industry is deplor- able in marketing innovativeness," he said, contending that sameness is turning the business into one selling commodi- ties. Speaking to employees assembled at Burger King's palatial headquarters, Mr. Langstaff told them: "Don't look back any more. We're a brand new company."