We chose to make a questionnaire about Fast food and more particularly about McDonalds and Burger king in order to report experiences and opinions of people towards this two brands.
Here is the questionnaire’s link:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1P1YUoRhBeu_NTILUZvtUC_kDajEZ65XLFe7cbkTD6tc/viewform
We started the questionnaire with questions that are related to habits of consumption for example: “How many time per year do you eat in a fast food?” or “How much do you spend each time you go to a fast food restaurant?”
Thanks to those kind of questions we were able to construct a profile of McDonald’s customers. The result we had about burger king wasn’t efficient enough to dress a profile. In fact, we administrated questionnaires in France and more precisely in Paris where there is no Burger King restaurant yet so results about people who chose burger king over McDonalds are distorted.
Profile of McDonalds consumers: they go to McDonalds at least once a month (72.2%), they go to the restaurant for most of them with friends (80%), they prefer to eat McDonalds food during the evening ( 45% ), they spent around 5 to 10 euro and stay there for about an hour.
For McDonalds we discover that the 3 mains criteria that bring people to this fast food are:
1) Choice of products : 36,4%
2) Location/quality : 27,3%
3) Price : 9,1%
The reasons that drive people to McDonalds are:
1) Practical aspects: 45,5%
2) Low price: 43,6%
3) Fast service: 36,4%
4) Taste: 29,1%
5) Experience: 9,1%
The second part of our questionnaire was based on the experience of customers in restaurant: those questions allow us to dress an elusive consumer study:
First of all, we asked people to grade the atmosphere, the product presentation and the signalization from poor to excellent. The results show that most of the consumers of McDonalds think that the atmosphere in the restaurant is good (54.5%). People like the presentation of products, the signalization is clear and well categories according to them, they can find the new recipes, prices, clear images of products to know how they look like, this helps them in their choices.
On the contrary, people showed their disappointment regarding the service in restaurant: In fact, to the question: “Did an employee approach and ask if you had question?” 90,9% answered No and to the question “Did an employee give you an accurate information on product?” 81,8% said No.
In conclusion of those scores we can say that people aren’t really satisfied by the type of service the restaurant has. The company could, in order to respond to customer’s needs, put in place a more efficient service with employees whom care more about the satisfaction of their clients ( ask question, give information…)
Finally, McDonalds customers are loyal, 100% of them will return to this fast food again. They like the brand and 82% recommend it to a friend and family members.
Brands’ awareness
Globally, Burger King is a well-known fast food brand. Regarding the first level of brand awareness, we can see from different international rankings that Burger King is always on top 100 and even top 10 in the fast food industry (rankingthebrands.com). According to our survey which is based in France, every participants have the basic brand awareness of Burger King while the brand is not yet in France. As we know the King is going to come back to Paris soon, this could be a good sigh for the brand.
But if we go deep into the next level: the brand recall thanks to the survey we made. the result it’s not a optimistic. Indeed, only few people took Burger King as their top of the mind. But as we did this research in France where Burger King is not present, the result is fairly reasonable. So besides the questionnaire, we tried to ask some people we know from other countries and Burger King is still not their first choice. This result shows what we discussed in previous posts that Burger King is highly concentrated in the United States. The brand is also facing the problem that its main competitors McDonalds and KFC are always top of minds for consumers. So, the brand really needs to make a lot of efforts to catch up with its rivals. As Burger King has a low brand recall awareness based on our questionnaire, we can know the result of brand recognition. Again, it is mainly because the brand is not present in France. So we don’t really have any added value analysis. Hopefully that this situation will change with the coming back of Burger King in Paris.
Actually, McDonalds has the highest brand awareness according to our questionnaire. If we look into international vision, the brand is also always the leader in the fast food industry and remains on top 10 in most of the rankings (rankingthebrands.com).
On the recall level, McDonalds is still the top of minds. It is generally easier to recognize a brand rather than recall it from the memory. Even though in France, McDonalds has strong competitors like Quick and KFC, it is the major choice for french consumers. McDonalds changes constantly the menus and invent different products for french consumers. This can be a main reason for the brand to be top of minds. Comparing to Burger King, McDonalds is also a USA based brand, but it is not concentrate just in the US. The brand always tries to adapt national needs and traditions. Another thing worth mentioning is that even we put non-burger choices like Subway and Pizza Hut, McDonalds still won.
Regarding the brand recognition level, most people know “le menu best of” and often it’s their first choice when go to McDonalds. And they have some special products in mind like sandwich baguette. On this level, McDonalds does a fairly good job for people to keep in mind their products.
Keller’s Pyramid for McDonalds
Keller’s Pyramid for Burger King
Salience:
- Who are you? Burger King is a global chain of hamburger fast-food restaurant started in 1953 and headquartered in Florida, United States. Burger King reported it had over 13,000 outlets in 79 countries in 2013.
- The main objective is willingness to tailor each and every hamburger ordered to ‘have it your way’.
- Characteristics of the service are quick-service with mobile delivery.
- Distinctive sighs: The famous slogan ‘have it your way’ and The king.
Performance:
- Primary characteristic: offering reasonable priced quality food, served quickly, in attractive, clean surroundings.
- Secondary characteristic: rapid service, mobile delivery, motorway service, drive thru, kids area, oder machine.
- Efficiency: Burger King always try to improve efficiency with new technology such as a Two-Phase Kitchen Upgrade and use renewable energy.
- Price: BK will reverse its course over the last year and embrace a new ‘value-pricing’ strategy. The new menu will be three-tiered and attempt to combat chains that have used value pricing to boost sales and customer counts.
Imagery:
- User profile: Burger King try to reach everyone in each category with low price food and quick service. The brand make efforts especially to communicate with children and family.
- Purchases and usages: At the end of September 2012, Burger King reported it had 12,667 restaurants in 73 countries which 66 percent are in the United States.The brand also ranked the 5th in Top 100 Global Franchises rankings.Burger King is second only to McDonalds and holds a 15% share of the United States among fast food restaurant chains.
- Personality and values: Compared to McDonald, Burger King is more family-oriented and customer-focused. It created a unique niche and allows customer to make their own burgers.
- Experiences: Once established, expansion and growth happened quickly for the Burger King restaurant chain. The brand believes improving the customer experience in “each and every” restaurant is a key aim for the business. Burger King improved the speed of service and quality of food at restaurants by rolling out a nationwide customer insight program.
Judgement
- Quality: Burger king is perceived as one of the best fast food restaurant in term of quality. People usually remember the good quality of the steak and the singular fries’ taste. Also Burger king put the accent on the fact that it is committed to quality and the freshness of the products.
- Credibility: Burger Kings has a good credibility regarding the quality of the food but less in term of healthy food for young population despite big advertising campaigns. This does not look sincere and decrease its credibility for future advertisings. Moreover, recent scandals about burgers containing horse meat decreased significantly its credibility regarding the provenance of its products.
- Consideration: Burger King is second on the market behind McDonald’s and there are more than 13000 restaurants dispatched in 89 countries. 11 millions of people eat Burger King every day and more than 56 millions of fries portions are served daily. Consideration is lower for Burger King than McDonalds but Burger King’s fries and whopper are a significant advantage to attract people.
- Superiority: Burger King is catching up with a strategy of differentiation and increases its presence around the world by penetrating new markets or by reinvesting where it had failed (France)
Feelings
- Warmth, fun: Young, colorful, cosy and playful.
- Excitement: People like spending time at Burger King because they offer very often new products (seasonal or permanent) and lot of promotion, especially for people with the Crown Card.
- Security: People used to feel secure regarding the provenance of products and the quality. However, Burger King went through several legal issues with food composition and especially this year during the horse meat scandal in the UK. Despite of two weeks of denials, Burger King admitted that it has been selling burger and whopper containing horse meat This had a huge consequence on the security perception of consumers.
- Social approval, self-respect: Burger king is approved and recommended by its consumers and especially by the “burger’s experts”.
Resonance:
- Loyalty: Strong loyalty of the fans. Burger King advertises massively to keep its best consumers and attract people that can make the difference among all burgers because they are potential future fans.
- Attachment: Burger king is number two on the market and increases its presence around the world. There is a visible attachment in France for example regarding the level of excitement for the reopening.
- Community: Burger King has an increasing community but does not interact enough with its consumers. Consequently the Facebook page is mainly for advertising but there is a lack of two-way communication. Today the number of Burger King’s Facebook likers is 5 times less than McDonalds and its has 3 times less followers on Twitter. However, burger King started to engage with consumers via Instagram so they can post pictures if they are satisfied.
- Engagement: Burger king uses the loyalty card system (Crown Card) to reward its consumers and encourage them to come back more often. This offer leads to a strong engagement from consumers because they can get products for free or discount on menu.
Authors: Viriginie Mialon, Bingying Zhang, Marvy Lungyeki, Maya Al Chaarani, Sandra Essafi
Burger War 