AdStand: Challenge your competitor

Naresh Gupta, Managing Partner and Chief Strategy Officer, Bang in the Middle, takes a look at the burger war between Burger King and McDonald's and highlights how consumers connect with brands differently today

Delhi | August 31, 2015

We all know the McWhopper offer from Burger King to McDonald's. The United Nations has a day dedicated to world peace – September 21 is declared by the UN as World Peace Day, when there is an absence of war and violence, and even temporary ceasefire in combat zones for humanitarian aid access.

Burger King wants to meet McDonald's midway between Chicago (McD HQ) and Miami (BK HQ) in Atlanta. Burger King has proposed a one-day pop-up burger store, where patrons #SettleTheBeef not with money but with tray mat truces.

No wonder the social media has been abuzz with excitement – the Burger King tweet saw 41,000 retweets.

McDonald's quickly rebuffed the offer with a suggestion that next time a simple phone call might do the trick. This was a gambit which McDonald's would have lost either ways. By accepting the offer, McDonald's would have ceded the upper hand in burger wars to Burger King, and by rejecting it, it would have been seen as an unsure big brother. The rejection from McDonald's though did not put an end to the event. Two more burger chains have offered to replace McWhopper with a mutant version of their burgers. Krystal, an Atlanta-based chain that makes square burgers, wants to make tiny square whoppers. Denny's, another chain of burgers, tweeted to make 'Slampers' with Burger King, the tweet found over 2,000 people either retweeting or marking the tweet as favourite.

Burger King, which was trolling McDonald's, is now being trolled by others. By September 21, the Burger War may actually seek a peace negotiator.

Burger King is clever, so is Jaguar in Hong Kong. Jaguar is launching its new XE range of cars. They created a campaign called 'Know no rules'. Jaguar has been an aggressive marketer and has been taking on its competitors aggressively. In Hong Kong, to build up for the launch, they put Mercedes, BMW and Audi in Jaguar-branded caves to generate interest in the new model of the car. The user-generated conversation on this stunt on Instagram alone has made the activity worth the brand's effort. Today, the connected individuals are constantly creating content that brands can tap into to further their interest. By pandering to the camera-totting, instagramming young audience, Jaguar XE has connected with the younger mindset.

Closer home, Sunfeast Yippee Noodles created a series of videos saying 'Absolutely Tasty, Absolutely Safe', highlighting how Yippee is the right noodle today. The series of ads touch upon how the noodles are made and tested to why food can have traces of lead. At a time when consumers are grappling with Maggi's disappearance from stores and trying to find a replacement, these ads could have been far more engaging and edgy. What the brand made was almost like sales detailers that retailers would be forced to watch. If Burger King and Jaguar could do what they did to McDonald's and BMW, Yippee could have done to Maggi.

Times have changed; consumers connect with brands differently now. They like the brands to be far more human like, have some rough edges to their personality, have a sense of humour that they should display. Consumers don't like the brands to take pot shots at competitors, but a healthy challenge is something that they always look up to, and enjoy.

McWhopper is not happening; we can do with the Yippee-Maggi saga for a while.

Info@bestmediainfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com