Welcome Hamburger Business Friends!
Today at Hamburger Business Review we’re looking at how technology and media intersect with fast food, and we wonder, which is selling which? We also see some positive regulatory actions that help BOTH consumers and McDonald’s, which feels like a nearly impossible win-win these days.
And then let’s go undercover where Mike is working at a hamburger restaurant, and ask Zach to explain his upcoming McTrot challenge. Finally we’ll close with our case study, which as you might guess from the image by Kriss Knapp is about expired meat.
Let’s start by trying really hard to not make a joke about chicken appetizers…
Chicken Apps + IP
Let’s talk about chicken. Well, chicken apps… Chick-fil-A has launched “Chick-fil-A Play” and it’s currently the #11 entertainment app in the App Store.
We first saw this in an Adweek article about the launch, but the app is available now in the Apple app store and the Google Play store.
The cow mascots are here, and the app lets you “watch, play, create, listen, and read” and will occupy your kids so you can enjoy your Honey Pepper Pimento Sandwich.
This is a free app. The only monetization strategy is hoping you buy a chicken sandwich.
We’ve talked about how McDonald’s leans heavily into its own IP. Not just in terms of Grimace, Ronald, and the rest of the cast of weirdos but the corporate heads speak reverently about the brand value of the sandwiches like the Big Mac™ and the McRib™.
But this chicken app reminds us of the anime shorts McDonald’s released last year under the “WcDonald’s” brand as part of their special dipping sauce promotion.
Our theory is that McDonald’s is leading the race in the QSR1 transition from restaurant to media company and we expect more apps, shorts, experiences, activations, and eventually full TV shows and movies to follow before all fast food is eventually competing with Mickey Mouse.
The End of the McBroken Era?
According to McBroken.com 14.72% of McDonald’s ice cream machines are broken right now. This site no doubt causes some ire at McHQ, especially after Wendy’s sponsored the site as part of an ad campaign.
But thanks to the work of Public Knowledge and iFixit the US Copyright Office has partially granted an exemption to the DMCA which will allow people to circumvent digital locks in order to repair commercial and industrial equipment.
What this means is that individual owner/operators of a franchise can now legally attempt to repair their own machines!
Rob Walker wrote about this in his Branded column for Fast Company with the headline Trump served fries, but Democrats helped fix McDonald’s broken ice cream machines.
The E. coli Story Continues
Mike talks about the impact of the E. coli outbreak at his own hamburger restaurant (spoiler: less lunch sales). The latest news as of today is that at least 104 people got sick, 34 were hospitalized, and one person died.
Not counting the costs of the lawsuits that have started, it’s now being reported that McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back, with $65 million going to support owners who lost business and $35 million into marketing efforts.
My Hamburger Restaurant
Mike says he is pretty good at drive thru now, and he gets complimented on his radio voice pretty often. The multi-tasking is next level and the tasks never end, but the system is pretty well designed. Mike adds,
It’s strange to be part of an invisible interaction (to them). I am trying very hard to make everything easy and quick and I want it to be pleasant too. But I can’t spend very much time on any one customer. I’m constantly trying to gauge how to present myself to them. Do they want Friendly Mike? Helpful Mike? Efficient Mike? Some combination? Most people don’t even seem to think of me as a person until they get to the window, which is weirdly fine (because it’s efficient)!
Zach asks how to be a good customer, which is probably something most people never think about, but Mike’s main point is to let the person on the headset drive the pace.
Chris asks, “What is a senior coffee?”
AD Would you like to reach all the business and burger enthusiasts who love Hamburger Business Review? We haven’t polled them but we assume it’s a lot of C-level executives and big time decision makers who are also really attractive and ready to buy something.
Peter Armstrong, CBC Senior Business Correspondent, said about us, “The podcast is fascinating, very fun and every time I listen to an episode, I learn something new.” Maybe that new thing could be your service, product, project, idea, or whatever we can help you promote2.
Introduction to McTrot
Zach is prepping for his 3rd annual McTrot, which he explains as a “challenge to eat at every McDonald’s in Manhattan within 24 hours, entirely on foot.” It’s an absolutely audacious, and seemingly impossible task.
As impossible as this sounds, Zach is not alone in creating strange athletics around McDonald’s. We’re big fans of Braden Roggow’s marathon literally AROUND a McDonald’s in Colorado.
Maybe he can join Zach next year! There is a lot more about McTrot on the podcast, and you can follow us on Instagram for more updates about this new attempt.
Case Study
This week’s case study is McDonald’s China: The Expired Meat Scandal that takes us back to 2014 when a Shanghai broadcaster secretly filmed inside the food processing plant of Shanghai Husi Food, a subsidiary of U.S.-based food supply giant OSI Group.
The footage shows workers handling food with their bare hands and picking up meat that has fallen on the floor and returning it directly into the processing machine. The shut down of this facility meant that beef and chicken products were unavailable across northern and central China and also impacted McDonald’s in Japan, which imported about 20% of their chicken nuggets from China.
This was an era of rapidly rising meat consumption in China which also led to a series of scandals including Wal-Mart recalling donkey meat after it was found to be contaminated with fox meat and Yum Brands, the owner of KFC and Pizza Hut, having just emerged from a food safety scandal that began in late 2012.
This did impact the share price back in 2014, but about a year later all was forgotten!
Obviously this case study made us think a lot about the E. coli situation McDonald’s is currently navigating (though is mostly out of the news now) with a slight dip in the share price. Mike remains bullish, but we don’t make recommendations and in fact recommend not choosing individual stocks.
Next Up: A 55-Cent Promotion
Next week we’re looking at McDonald’s 55 Cent Promotion, which happened in the late 90’s and is known as a huge marketing failure. As we dissect what went wrong we also look at the current era of promotions and the rising costs of fast food in America.
If you enjoy Hamburger Business Review you can support us by subscribing, buying merch, or even just buying us a burger.
Book Recommendation
We don’t recommend stocks, but we do recommend books. McAtlas isn’t out yet, but listener Aidan Flaherty sent this to us and Mike has already pre-ordered it. Gary He, a James Beard Award-winning photographer has independently travelled the globe and photographed the non-standard items within the standardized universe of McDonald’s.
A Glowing Endorsement
Peter Armstrong, the Senior. Business Correspondent at the CBC, wrote a glowing recommendation of Hamburger Business Review in his Mind Your Business newsletter.
Welcome to our new 🇨🇦 Canadian subscribers, which is home to so many essential aspects of McDonald’s expansion. Not only was it the first international push but we talked a lot about Canadian McDonald’s in the episode about the Russian economic crisis.
QSR - Quick Serve Restaurant
Within reason… I mean, we have to maintain our journalistic integrity.
Share this post