Burger King Aggressively Promotes New Menu

The fast-food chain has earmarked $750 million to update stores, expand its menu, install digital menu boards and pay celebrity pitchmen and women.

April 20, 2012

MIAMI - Burger King wants you know it is changing its ways. From freshening its stores to enlarging its menu, the fast-food chain has been transforming its entire way of doing business in an effort to bring back customers, CNBC reports.

"One of the things that we really wanted to do was give people an opportunity to sample what makes Burger King products different," said Miguel Piedra, vice president of global communications for the chain. Yesterday, 30 food trucks set out for 40 cities, where employees would give free samples of new menu items, including chicken strips with new dips and fresh-fruit smoothies.

Burger King has been testing more than 24 new menu items over the past year, with 10 making the cut to the menu. Those include frappes, snack wraps and salads. "For us, it??s really not about being first to market, it??s about being best to market," said Piedra.

Part of the new push relates to the fact that although the burger chain might have 100% brand awareness in this country, Wendy??s knocked it from the number-two spot, pushing Burger King third in burger QSR chains. But the reboot appears to be initially paying off, with some franchisees who remodeled registering a 15% to 20% bump in sales.

"We no longer look at our competitive set as just other competitors that sell hamburgers," said Piedra. "The industry has completely changed, so we??re competing with coffee houses that sell wine, sandwich shops that sell breakfast."

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