The burger king: building of an empire

Question 1: Burger King’s communication objectives for its target audience
Burger King’s CEO Brad Blum was surprised at the fast rate the fast-food industry had grown. The industry abruptly fired the firm through an advertisement in Young & Rubicam (Y & R) and also by awarding a creative account to the Miami-based firm called Crispin. This ensured that BK was on the fore-front in the provision of fast-food services despite the mass media influence that claimed BK as a bad client (McLamore 4). Therefore, BK developed a campaign with the theme ‘ The Fire’s ready’ that focused on BK’s flame-broiled cooking method versus frying. This helped boost and revive BK’s sales majorly.
Question 2: Together with its implications does BK alienate other customers with its focus on the super fan?
BK stands to lose on the majority because of its focus on the super fan. This reveals that not common citizens go to eat at the fast-food joint due to the lavish presentation of BK. It faces stiff competition from Crispin which earned its reputation from the traditional mass media. In relation to this, Crispin has produced award-winning, low budget campaigns for BMW’s Mini Cooper, Sunglass Hut, IKEA furniture, Virgin Airways among other leading brands in the world. Crispin became a substantial hit to Burger King, continually turning around the fast-food industry (McLamore 12). This is also influenced by the fact that BK advertises itself to the super fan. However, this people in most cases opt for other fast-foods like Crispin. This greatly affects the company and its sales (McLamore 21).
Question 3: Effectiveness of viral marketing
The advantage with viral or buzz marketing is that it ensures that a firm has an impressive customer turn out. It is depicted that Crispin used an inexpensive, traditional media, which quickly spread to the consumers. Moreover, the TV campaign put by Crispin also helped boost promotion of its products. Furthermore, to promote BK’s Tender Crisp chicken, Crispin launched a micro site www. subservientchicken. com, which had an unusually low turnaround. The site featured a man dressed in a chicken suit and responded by performing commands typed by visitors into a text box.
Remarkably, when Crispin introduced its own site, it had a far much better turn out of over 20 million people. The site had become viral in less than 10 days. The promotion is based on a faux heavy metal band called Cog Roq. The idea was to create the charade of a band. This made people buy more than 100 million orders of chicken fries in the first four weeks after the launch. This revealed that Cog Roq and Subservient chicken campaigns were Crispin’s portrayal of an effective viral market (McLamore 32).
Question 4: BK’s campaigns
BK’s campaigns are working extremely well based on the fact that they have been able to grow tremendously. This has been attributed considerably by the TV and most of the viral elements that they have used to stage their fast-food industry. Moreover, Crispin can create attractive ads to feature in the advertisement of its products.
Question 5: Recommendations to BK and Crispin.
To help improve the integration of BK’s promotion mix, one can recommend that the BK should focus on every citizen and not only a bunch of people. They should have adopted the traditional mass media advertisement mode in order to maximize on their sales (McLamore 33). If they accomplish this, then BK is assured to increase its sales. The BK firm should also work on more creative ads that will ensure they get maximum attention from the consumer sector.
Work cited
McLamore, James. The Burger King: Building of an Empire. New York: McGraw-Hill press, 1997. Print.