Burger King launched a campaign called a “A Day Without Whopper,” where it stopped selling its top-selling burger on Sept. 26 in Argentina to help support McDonald’s “McHappy Day.” McDonald’s efforts were to receive donations for Children with Cancer. Students said although the companies had good intentions, this strategy was inconvenient for customers and offering more options would have yielded more results.
They said Burger King’s attempt to help McDonald’s raise money for cancer in Argentina backfired, and the strategy the company used could have been improved.
“Imagine a customer going to Burger King to buy a Whopper, but the workers redirect them to a McDonald’s to purchase a Big Mac instead of [selling their own burger for profit,]” said Jillian Ruby, a sophomore from Colorado double majoring in elementary education and psychology.
Knowing that Burger King and McDonald’s are two different companies, Ruby said she likes the idea of the companies being more civil instead of fierce competitors, especially when facing a topic such as cancer, but said her concern was customers might be angry even if it was for a good cause.
According to gritdaily.com, the reason to initiate the campaign was to help McDonald’s with its annual fundraising campaign of donating $2 to Children with Cancer for every Big Mac and signature burger the fast-food restaurant sells.
Meanwhile, Spencer Taggart, a BYU–Hawaii professor in entrepreneurship, said the incident was a win-win and brilliant marketing strategy in public relations for both companies, “The No. 1 key in marketing is relationship and trust. When the companies are doing good things, it makes [them] look like a hero. Thus, they got free publicity and advertisement for free because the news people want to talk about it.”
Do it in a better way
Dallis Bowen, a senior from Colorado majoring in marketing, said the idea was good, but the strategy backfired on Burger King because customers like to have the agency to choose what they want or don’t want. He said a company can’t tell customers who come for a Whopper to drive all the way to a different restaurant to order a different sandwich.
Bowen gave a better suggestion from her perspective as a marketing major. “It would have been great if the companies had done it a different way, such as Burger King should collect the money and gave it to McDonald’s for the charity.”
Meanwhile, Ruby, who used to work at the Laie McDonald’s, said since the Big Mac is a burger for people with specific taste buds, the promotion would have been more successful if they offered more options, such as Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, Double Quarter Pounder, Filet-o-Fish, or 10-piece nuggets.
Ruby explained because there are other “most commonly purchased things on the menu, they [could] offer different options of flavor, so if someone knew profits were going to help cancer, they might be more inclined to buy, and they still would like their food.”
Bowen said helping customers should be the first thing when people think about marketing. Rather than helping the company raise money, it would be gaining more success if one thinks in the customers' position about what they need and want.
According to online news, theThings.com, while the net impact on both Burger King and McDonald’s sales was not huge, “McDonald's sold more than 73,000 more Big Macs than it did during last year's McHappy Day.” Burger King was able to help, but people interviewed said perhaps a different strategy could have prevented customers from deciding to order something different for a quick meal, instead of going out of their way to grab a Big Mac.