Burger King & Social Media
Who could have missed the big fast food adverts on TV growing up? Burger King, rivals McDonalds, Wimpey’s spent millions convincing consumers that their burger is the best and that they are indeed the best fast food chain.
According to Notte (2013, p.34) the essence of eating out in the future will be the result of the experiments being conducted today by Burger King and other fast food chains. With smart phones capable of synchronising to the fast food chain’s ordering system and recording personal information as well as food order history, technology will enable the fast food chains will embody a better service reliant on even speedier experience than currently adapted.
Where there are organisations that discourage their employees from using social media Burger King is heavily engaged in it. In fact it was one of the first chains that was seeking alternatives to TV adverts and started using social media for marketing its products (Smith 2006, p.23). A quick look at their facebook and twitter pages indicated a high level of activity, they are constantly updated with relevant events, such as a man dressed in a whopper, eating a whopper for Halloween and different types of food that have come onto the menu. Their social media pages engage the consumer and are interesting to read with photography that is frankly mouth watering!
Burger King (in the US) entered the social media world early on and in order to develop following it initiated a clever campaign the chain aimed for whopper one million fans and once it hit the one million, it rewarded each person who signed up with a whopper making it the second most visited facebook page in the country (Labanca, 2012 p.63).
It is also been noted that Burger King had stayed focused on its costumers developing needs and had stayed true to its slogan and vision by letting consumers ‘have it their way’ by giving them online coupons and information, (Gitomer, 2011, p. 11) in essence they stayed engaged with the trends of the community and delivered upon their brand promise by continued engagement whilst other organisation were getting held back by trying to regulate and police their social media.
Although Burger King still advertises in newspapers and TV because it realises that some of their consumers may not be tech savvy and by doing so they can still engage them as they do with the tech savvy clients.
There is always a risk of attracting publicly criticism, however Burger King seems to have handled this the right way, but responding promptly to complaints on their twitter account and directing the customers to another link where they can fill a complaint form with all their personal details that the company then used to respond to their complaints. The efficiency of responding aids in a fast service recovery and it is just as important on social media as it is when people complain in person.
In conclusion, Burger King is an organisation that recognised the change in consumer behaviour, therefore it must have had a close relationship with its customers from the beginning, it allowed them to direct the company to using social media so early in the game, it measured it’s success by placing a value on a high number on fans and then seeking to reach that goal, the company may have outsourced their social media but from going into their Facebook and twitter, it is not obvious. The organisation added social media to its marketing; it did not stop using TV and newspaper but increased its marketing channels in line with modernisation of technology.
References:
NASH, K.S. (2013), 'Fast Food gets PERSONAL. (cover story)', Cio, 26 (9) pp. 34-41 [online]. Available from: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=86643485&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed on 3rd November 2014)
Labanca, A. (2012) 'WHOPPING RESULTS from social media', Latin Trade (English), 20 (6) p. 63, [online]. Available from: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=84299305&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed on 3rd November 2014)
Smith, S. (2006) 'Marketers jump onto pro Bono bandwagon', Marketing Week, 29 (20) p. 23 [online]. Available from: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=21043108&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed on 3rd November 2014)
Gitomer, J. (2011) 'The social media boom is here, and you're a bust!', Enterprise/Salt Lake City, 40 (24) p. 7, [online]. Available from: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bwh&AN=57430758&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed on 3rd November 2014)
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