How Burger King changed their marketing strategies in the context of Covid19

1. MarketingManagement
How companies are changing their marketing
strategies in the context of Covid19
Table of contents:
1. Introduction to the company
2. Pre-covid marketing
3. Post-covid marketing
4. Analysis of Market environment
a. PESTLE Analysis
b. Competitive Analysis
c. 5C Analysis

2. Burger King
Burger King (BK) is an American multinational chain of hamburger fast food restaurants
which was founded in 1954.
It is the second largest fast food hamburger restaurant chain of the world and operates as a
quick service restaurant.
It both owns and franchises hamburger restaurants. Its marketing strategies aim to
maximize competitiveness against a wide variety of players.
Burger King employs various tactics to promote its products. It uses the following
promotion/marketing communications tactics, arranged according to significance:
1. Advertising: Burger King relies mainly on advertising to promote its products. The
company advertises online and on TV and print media.
2. Sales promotions: It uses sales promotions in the form of coupons and other offers
through its website and mobile app.
3. Personal selling: The firm’s restaurant personnel also typically use personal selling to
encourage customers to buy more products from the menu, such as desserts in addition to
what the customer already ordered.
4. Public relations: In applying public relations, the Burger King McLamore Foundation
gives scholarships and financial assistance for educational programs, thereby also
effectively promoting and strengthening the Burger King brand.
2. Pre-Covid19 marketing:
BK has used several social media channels for marketing of its brand. From Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram as well as Linked In, the company uses all these channels to market itself and
promote its products. BK has achieved a nice level of engagement through social media
communication. It communicates regularly with its followers and sends regular Tweets or
messages to its customers. The company also markets its work culture and business strategy
through these networks. Some classic examples are as follows:
1. Good SamaritanDay(CauseMarketing)
Instead of a simple social media post for Good Samaritan Day, Burger king decided to stage a
car fire on a highway, & surprised those who stopped to help. Whoever stopped to help was
shocked to see that the car wasn’t on fire instead they were making burgers. People who had
stopped were offered those burgers as a gesture tothank them for being kind to someone who
needed help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G64B13oDvcQ

3. 2. The Moldy Whopper (Brand Story-tellingmarketingstrategy)
Burger king came up with a unique strategy of marketing with a video that showed a Moldy
Whopper, this campaign was intended to increase awareness of Burger King’s commitment to
remove artificial preservatives from all of its food by the end of the year. In most European
countries their foods are 100% preservative-freeand 90% in North America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ef7xw2J500
3. Call of duty burger king (Co-branding strategy)
One Burger King restaurant in Los Angeles transformed into a real-life version of the Call of
Duty Burger Town restaurant. Within the restaurant, guests will find a gaming hub set up by
Activision for visitors to play the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game. This is a classic
example of Social media marketing combined with co-branding marketing strategy which
benefitted both the companies involved.
3. Post-Covid19 marketing
Burger King swiftly implemented more stringent food safety and sanitation norms which
were in compliance with the government mandated requirements & communicated about
the same with their customers through social media handles.
Its main objective was to
 maintain Brand Saliency via Contextual Messaging,
 Creating Consumer Awareness of Safety Measures undertaken by the
Brand,
 Contextual Food Craving, to fulfil the craving of the consumers and increase the
delivery skew.
They communicated Safe Deliveries via Swiggy and Zomato.
They changed their social media strategy from topical content to daily posts, as they
wanted to increase more customer engagement. Ex: “crown standard measures”& “Burger
king Journey” were highlights of their posts.
The Burger King Content and communication strategy was completely different from other
players in the category, who were creating content on quarantine contests to maintain
brand recall among the audience.

4. On the other hand, Burger King had a multi messaging approach comprising food safety,
topical messaging and creating authentic connections with the brand by using videos and
photographs shot and featuring the employees of the brand.
Best marketing strategy was their unique Campaigns & Advertisements
1. Affinity marketing Strategy
During June every year there is a pride parade held in Spain, but this year due to Covid19 the
parade was cancelled but burger king decided to wow their customers by using their delivery
trucks to create a mini parade instead. Every time someone placed an order for home delivery,
burger king delivered with a parade from 1st to5th of July with a tagline which said “The pride is
on you, the parade is on us”
2. Competitiveadvertising strategy
When a Tesla owner posted a video online of their car mistaking a burger king sign for a stop
sign. Burger king took the opportunity & turned this into an ad which said: “smart cars are
smart enough to brake for a Whopper”. Even robots want you to stop for a burger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0cb7wZVFf4

5. 3. Brand Marketing plus promotional activities
During the pandemic Burger king decided to encourage their customers by setting up huge
“Home of the Whopper” sign outside every customers house who ordered food online from
their App & also gave them free delivery all summer. This was quite a great strategy as since the
beginning of the lockdown most of the American has been ordering food online.
4. Whooper Dance Challenge (Co-branding strategy):
Burger king teams up with TikTok during the pandemic to engage their customers who may
already be Tiktok users or vice versa. In this challenge burger king would offer Whooper for $1
if the customers imitated the creators moves. TikTok creators posted dance tutorial videos
ontheir personal TikTok pages, demonstrating moves that represent Whopper sandwich
combinations that user can incorporate into their orders.

6. 5. StayHome of the Whopper (Cause marketing):
Burger king asked their customers to remain at home to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19
while also highlighting Burger King's support for healthcare professionals. Toencourage them
to do so, Burger King is waiving all delivery fees on orders over $10 through its mobile app. As
part of the campaign, to salute those on the frontline fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, Burger
King is giving away 250,000 Whopper sandwiches to nurses. The American Nurses Foundation
will distribute codes for nurses to order Whopper Sandwiches for free through the mobile app.
It is also collecting money for the charity, asking its fans to text ‘THANKS’ toa hotline to make a
one-time $10 donation directly to the American Nurses Foundation Corona virus Response
Fund.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsQ7Wto0FJg
The COVID related communication commenced 17th March onwards. The content garnered
positive responses from consumers and was highly appreciated by Burger King’s global team.
Below is a brief comparison of the statistics pre lockdown and during lockdown.
Stats Pre Lockdown Stats during Lockdown
Post Reach: 4M Post Reach: 8M
Organic Reach: 800K Organic Reach: 1M
Organic Video Views per post: 800+ Organic Video Views per post: 1.5K+
Organic Followers: 300+ Organic Followers: 500+

7. 4a. PESTLE Analysis of Burger King during the
Covid-19 pandemic
The pestle analysis helps us analyse and monitor the macro- environment factors
that might have an impact on burger king’s performance due to the Covid-19
pandemic.
1. Political factors- Burger King Brand operates in more than 109 countries
around the world and most of its market share is driven by foreign expansion.
Thus, because of the Covid- 19 pandemic many countries around the globe have
implemented strict lockdowns and social distancing norms; this has had
adverse impact on the burger king. The future of burger king’s sales and growth
depends upon the graph of Covid 19 cases and government’s role of relaxing the
restrictions in each country.
2. Economic factors- Since Covid-19 pandemic has led to layoffs in
employment, consumer is cutting down on their discretionary spending’s due to
the fear of economic downturn. Thus, burger king shall realign their strategies
towards online deliveries, takeaways and cost management strategies.
3. Social factors- The current Covid-19 situation has led to higher health
consciousness and has built a lifestyle where in people are avoiding restaurants
and fast foods like burger king. Thus such quick service restaurants need to
resort to low calorie fast foods and wait for the economy to revive back.
4. Technological Factors- Most quick service restaurants are realigning
their strategies towards online deliveries and takeaways due to the Covid-19
pandemic. Thus burger king can apply this technology to improve operational
efficiency and the company can tap mobile users to gain a bigger market share.
In the pre-Covid times most QSRs used to get 20-30% of their revenue from
deliveries, now they need to take this to 50-70%.
5. Legal factors- In the current pandemic burger king will need to consider
the employment act and the corporate social responsibility towards society and
commit itself in the code to encourage diversity among employees, franchisers,
business sources, community involvement and prevent discrimination within
the company.
6. Environmental factors- Burger King will also have to consider about
people who put emphasis on quality of life rather than the quantity of goods.
They will have to consider safety, durability, value in the foodstuffs they buy
and to greater levels of overall satisfaction and happiness for example more
environmentally friendly safe products and introduction of recyclable
packaging.
4b.Competitive Analysis
Intensive strategies in connection to Porters’ generic Strategies
The following depicts the intensive strategies used by Burger King in the order of most
application to least:
1. Market Penetration
 Opening new restaurants in its current markets toget a bigger market share.
 Expanding Burger King’s franchise network.

8.  Highlighting unique product features to penetrate markets and grow the business.
2. Market Development.
 Opening new stores in overseas locations where it does not have operations.
 This strategy is only secondary or minor in Burger King’s business because the
company already has operations in most markets around the world.
 Grow Burger King by attracting new customers in new markets based on low prices
(Cost leadership strategy)
3. Product Development.
 Product development and innovation is the least significant of Burger King’s intensive
growth strategies.
 The company introduces new products at a slow rate. Most of Burger King’s products
remain on the menu for years.
 This intensive growth strategy supports Burger King’s generic strategy of broad
differentiation by highlighting new products that are unique compared to those of
competing firms.
From the above data, we can see that Burger King follows a Model of Cost leadership
along with Differentiation in order to reach a wider range of customers and achieve
customer satisfaction.
Competitive
advantage
BurgerKing McDonalds Wendy’s Subway KFC
Food     
QuickService     ×
Price    × 
Ambience × × × × ×
Netcompetitive
advantage
  × × ×
Buyingpower    × 
Franchising   ×  
Rapid
Expansion
×  × × ×
5C Analysis
1. COMPANY:
 Founded in 1954, Miami, Florida- United States by James Mclamore& David Edgerton.
 Its restaurant brands international which is one of the largest fast food hamburgers
 Fast food restaurant in the world with strong brand equity and most of its restaurants
are owned by franchisees.
2. COLLABORATORS:
 The chain market was Rs 350 billion in FY19, Burger King operates in this market under
the QSR category. They operate through franchisee model.

9.  On the investment side the company has bought both operating and financial assets. On
the financing side the company has issued equity shares worth 270 Cr in FY17 and
raised monies through CCPS in FY19 for Rs 100 Cr.
 Some of the suppliers of the company include – Hyfun Foods, Mrs Bectors, OSI Vista,
Pepsi Co, Schreiber, Veeba and Venky’s. Supply chain is an essential piece of the
business, it is very important for the company to get its supplies on time and in the right
condition. The company manages its supply chain through a third-party distributor –
ColdEX. The third-party distributor buy supplies from the vendors and Burger King
then buys it from ColdEX.
 This arrangement gives the company access to ColdEX’s warehousing facilities and
extensive logistics network across the country.
 In addition, the company saves on investing in working capital, as the third party
distributor keeps all the supplies on its books before the company purchases it.
3. CUSTOMERS:
 Due to the current covid-19 all dine in restaurants are closed however they are currently
delivering it customers through Zomato&Swiggy, their target audience, average 15 yrs. to
45 yrs. of age group however they have customers from the age of 10 yrs. to45 yrs.
 While pre-Covid 19 scenario their market grown by 14% CAGR. The QSR and CDR
segment have seen the fastest growth – 18% and 15% respectively, Casual dining (CDR)
constitutes 56% of the market followed by QSR which is 21%.
 Together these markets have 77% of the market, Fine dining (FDR) has seen the lowest
growth 4%, quick service restaurant -QSR has seen the highest market share gains in this
period at 3%.
 Post Covid 19 there is dip in QSR and CSR however they have been doing the delivery
through Zomato&Swiggy. We are yet tosee how over the next few months they perform.
They have been promoting to their customers in creative ways with all hygiene levels
followed in preparing the food and delivering it.
4. COMPETITORS:
 Primary competitors are, McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut Wendy’s, Dominos.
 The organized chain market has more than 100 brands with over 6,500 outlets spread
across various cities in India. Competitors of the company are other international QSR
chains such as McDonald’s, KFC, Domino’s Pizza, Subway, Pizza Hut and other local
restaurants operating in the QSR segment.
 Food services market is fragmented in India, 62% of the market is with the unorganized
players. In this kind of an environment it is a challenge to retain customer loyalty and
companies have to constantly spend/carry out initiatives to gain footfalls.
 There is shortage of skilled labour and attrition rates in the industry are 35-40%, the cost
of manpower is also high. This can impact the quality of products that the restaurant
offers.
 There are lot of regulations and over licensing to start a food service business. It is
estimated that players wanting to enter the food services market require 12-15 licenses
from various authorities.
 Awareness among the public for healthy food may hamper businesses of companies
operating in this space offering pizza, burgers, sandwiches.
 Cloud kitchens offering the same type of food will be more profitable than walk-in
restaurants as there is no major CAPEX in setting this up versus a fully furnished
restaurant Delivery aggregators may charge higher commissions to restaurants which will
impact the profitability of the players operating in this space.

10. 5. CLIMATE:
 When it comes to law and regulations in the fast food segment there are as many as 12 to
15 regulations they need to file and maintain with the local authorities, they have been very
active in promoting their brands and we can often see their creative adverts through their
social media platforms teasing McDonalds (rival brand) in creative ways.
 Customers do follow and enjoy the brand and they have a fair share of market and its
followers. We will have towait and see at what price/valuation will the shares be offered at
by the company.
 There are twoother players in this space – JubliantFoodworks (Domino’s) and Westlife
Development (McDonald’s).
 Drivers like higher incomes, people eating out more frequently and women joining the
workforce will drive the demand for the offerings that companies make in this space. The
price at which retail investors can participate in this story will be the decider.
The Burger King Content and communication strategy was
completely different from other players in the category,
who were creating content on quarantine contests to
maintain brand recall among the audience. On the other
hand, Burger King had a multi messaging approach
comprising food safety, topical messaging and creating
authentic connections with the brand by using videos and
photographs shot and featuring the employees of the
brand.