FAST FOOD
AUGUST 14, 2021
The History Of Burger Wars : clash of the fast food titans
The history of burger wars took place in the 1980’s when people were obsessed with speedy burger across the entire western world. McDonald’s and Burger King are considered to be the most dominant players of the competition along with other chains in the United States.
It was the effect in the 20th century as we saw a revolutionary lifestyle in the way we eat. It was the fast food craze that made people had pre-packaged food ready to consume along with the fast pace of the modern world. And such popular thing in the fast food industry was the competition between hamburgers giants.
Both McDonald’s and Burger King used advertising as their primary weapon in fast food industry. Burger King threw the bomb first as they exposed the “poor quality” of McDonald’s cooking techniques and the superiority of Burger King’s taste.
Of course, the Big M didn’t take the assault peacefully and launched their own counterattack as a burger giant should do. A series of ad campaign was made to attack Burger King burgers. The response was caught by Burger King by once again call out the poor quality of McDonald’s menu and highlighted their flame grilled, BBQ taste burgers.
Then in 1984, it was Wendy’s that stunned both the McDonald’s and Burger King by self proclaiming that their burgers had more meat than both the Big Mac and Whopper hamburgers. The now legendary Wendy’s campaign was the “Where’s the beef?” advertising. In 1999, “Where’s the Beef?” made Advertising Age’s list of top 10 slogans for the 20th century. The campaign boosted Wendy’s annual revenue by 31 percent in 1984.
The three major players were dominated the burger wars scenes at the time. They launched advertising to attack each other while smaller business like Hardees and In-N-Out took a more conventional way by focusing on growing dedicated local followings, avoiding any involvement of the feud between the industry leaders.
By the mid-1980s, the constant financial spending on advertising began to affect the major players. The ads campaign cost McDonald’s an estimated $100 million alone, and the business spent around $350 million a year only for advertising. The condition also forced Burger King to lay off over 100 workers from their corporate headquarters, while in 1987 Wendy’s reported their first ever quarterly losses towards the end of the decade.
It is clear that war is always expensive, whatever the war is, whatever you fight for. The costs proved too big even for these business titans.
The history of burger wars were the part of our modern history in the food industry that taught us to always serve consumers for better meals, and not only focusing to attack your rivals instead.
Today, most consumers have grown their own taste for food. Many high end or fine dining restaurants have been emerging in the last decade and force the fast food industry to reform their business strategy. There is now a clear line that divides between customers who value personal, exceptional cooking and people who care about cost.
McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s are still fighting for their own share of the fast food market today, however the growing wave of gourmet burger joints makes it a much harder fight. The time may change but the war remains. The history of burger wars are not over yet.
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