'Burger King' (), often abbreviated to 'BK', is the second largest
chain of
hamburger fast food restaurants in the world behind industry bellwether
McDonald's and the third largest chain overall after McDonald's and
Yum! Brands. Founded in 1954 in
Miami, Florida, its current headquarters are located in a suburban Miami area that is part of an
unincorporated section of
Miami-Dade County. Beginning in 1959, BK began expanding its market by using a
franchise model to drive its expansion plans. Since that time, the company has grown to just over 11,000 stores in 65 nations around the globe
[1]. One of its largest franchisees is 'Hungry Jack's', which owns, operates and sub-licenses over 300 restaurants in
Australia.
When the company first started, its
menu consisted predominantly of
hamburgers,
french fries,
soft drinks, and
desserts; since that time it has expanded the breadth of its menu by adding various non-beef items like
chicken, fish and veggie
sandwiches; a breakfast menu;
salads and non-soft drink beverages such as
Icees. Its
advertising has generated a memorable jingle, several well known and parodied
slogans and a successful
Internet meme centered around its mascot,
the Burger King.
Additionally, over the past several years BK has been cited as contributing to the western
obesity epidemic by introducing products that contain large amounts of
fat,
trans-fat and calories. Like many of its competitors, BK has also been targeted by various animal welfare groups, such as
PETA, over the treatment of the animals it uses in the production its products.
Corporate profile
History
Burger King's first restaurant, originally called 'Insta Burger King', was opened on
December 4,
1954 in a suburb of
Miami, Florida,
USA by
James McLamore and
David Edgerton, who were both alumni of the
Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. McLamore had visited the hamburger stand belonging to
Dick and Mac McDonald in
San Bernardino, California; being able to sense potential in their innovative
assembly line-based production system, he decided to create a version of his own. By 1959, BK had grown to five regional stores in and around the metropolitan Miami area. About this time, Messrs McLamore and Edgerton decided to expand BK nationally by using a franchising system that had become a popular method for expansion due to its low capital cost for the parent company. They formed Burger King Corporation as the parent and began selling territorial franchise licenses to private owners across the US.
[2]
In
1967, after eight years of private operation, the
Pillsbury Company acquired Burger King and its parent company Burger King Corporation. At the time of the purchase, BK had grown to 274 different restaurants in the United States. While BK began its foray in to locations outside of the
continental United States in 1963 with a store in
San Juan, Puerto Rico, it did not have a large international presence. This situation changed shortly after the acquisition when Pillsbury began BK's global expansion with its first international restaurant in
Canada in
1969. Other international locations followed soon after:
Oceania in
1971 with Hungry Jack's and the first
European restaurant located in
Madrid, Spain, in
1975. Beginning in
1982, BK and its franchisees began operating stores in several
East Asian countries, including
Japan,
Taiwan,
Singapore and
Korea. Due to high competition, many of the Japanese locations closed by the end of 2001. BK reentered the Japanese market in mid-2007
[3]. BKs
Central and
South American operation started in
Mexico in
date.
Since the time that Pillsbury bought Burger King, BK has been the object of a series of failed and successful acquisitions and divestitures. In 1973, Chart House, at over 350 restaurants and one of BK's largest franchise groups, attempted to purchase the chain from Pillsbury for $100 million (
USD). When Chart House's bid failed, its owners, Billy and Jimmy Trotter, suggested that Pillsbury and Chart House spin off their respective Burger King holdings and merge the two entities into a separate company; an offer Pillsbury also declined. After the failed attempts to acquire BK, the relationship between Chart House and the Trotters began to sour; in 1979 BK successfully sued Chart House for improperly acquiring locations in Boston and Houston
. In
1984, Pillsbury purchased Chart House's successor, DiversiFoods, for $390 million (
USD)
[4] after a separate, independent $525 million management-backed leveraged buy-out of the company failed
[5].
BK, and former corporate siblings,
Bennigan's,
Steak and Ale,
Godfather's Pizza (part of the DiversiFoods acquisition
[6]),
Quick Wok and
Häagen Dazs ice cream shops, remained under the Pillsbury corporate umbrella until Pillsbury divested its restaurant holdings in
1989 and sold Burger King to
British alcoholic beverage manufacturer and distributer
Grand Metropolitan PLC. In
1989, under the ownership of Grand Met, Burger King acquired many locations of its major
UK rival
Wimpy when the parent company bought the Wimpy's brand from its previous owner
United Biscuits and re-branded them as Burger King, giving it an even greater presence in that country. While other "Wimpy" locations are still in operation presently, they are now independent from BK and no longer have the presence they once did
. In
1997, Grand Metropolitan merged with
Guinness to form a company called
Diageo. Diageo maintained ownership of BKC until
2001 when Diageo decided to focus solely on their beverage products and put BK up for sale.
In
2002, a
troika of
private equity firms led by
Texas Pacific Group with associates
Bain Capital and
Goldman Sachs Capital Partners agreed to purchase BK from Diageo for $1.5 billion (
USD),
with the sale becoming complete in December of that year
[7]. The new owners, through several new CEOs, have moved to revitalize and reorganize the company, the first major move was to re-name the BK parent as Burger King Brands. Although the investment group initially planned to take BK public within the two years of the acquisition, this was delayed until 2006. On
February 1,
2006, CEO
Greg Brenneman announced TPG's plans to turn Burger King into a publicly traded company by issuing an
Initial Public Offering. On February 16, the company announced it had filed its registration for the IPO with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. On
May 18,
2006, Burger King began trading on the
New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BKC.
The TPGroup has continued BK's international expansion by announcing plans to open new franchised locations in
Eastern Europe[8][9], 180 stores in the
Africa and the
Middle East[10][11],
Brazil, and over 250 stores in new Asian territories such as
Macao and
China by the end of 2012
[12].
Key dates
★ 1954: James McLamore and David Edgerton establish Burger King Corporation.
★ 1957: The Whopper is launched.
★ 1958: First BK TV advertisement
[13]
★ 1959: The company begins to expand through franchising.
★ 1967: Burger King is sold to Pillsbury.
★ 1977: Donald Smith is hired to restructure the firm's franchise system.
★ 1982: Burger King claims its grilled burgers are better than its competitors' (McDonald's and Wendy's) fried burgers.
★ 1989: Grand Metropolitan plc acquires Pillsbury.
★ 1997: The firm launches a $70 million french fry advertising campaign; Grand Metropolitan merges with Guinness to form Diageo plc.
★ 2002: A group of investors led by Texas Pacific Group acquire Burger King.
Trademark disputes
As it expanded in the United States, Burger King found that smaller operations had previously been using the name. One such restaurant in
Mattoon, Illinois negotiated a settlement that forbids the chain from opening locations within 20 miles (32 km). See
Burger King (Mattoon, Illinois).
In a trademark settlement with San Antonio local chain Whopper Burger, Burger King was not allowed to open locations within two counties of the city. The chain was ultimately bought out in the mid 1980s, opening the way for San Antonio Burger King locations.
A trademark conflict also arose in Australia; see
Hungry Jack's, below.
Facts and figures
Burger King, Camp Liberty,
Iraq
Burger King Holdings is the parent company of Burger King, in the
US it operates under the Burger King Brands title while internationally it operates under the Burger King Corporation banner. It is a publicly traded company with investment firms of Texas Pacific Group, Bain Capital, and Goldman Sachs each owning about 25% of the company.
[14]
Historically, Burger King has been the second largest burger chain in North America, behind
McDonald's. However, Burger King's revenues and market share have been declining. In the early 2000s, Burger King fell to a near tie for second place with
Wendy's. Burger King has been closing under-performing stores and changing its marketing strategy in an attempt to turn its fortunes around. In fiscal year 2002, the firm had
US $11.3 billion in total sales.
As of 2006, there are more than 11,220 Burger King outlets in 61 countries. 66% of the restaurants are in the United States. The company has more than 340,000 employees who serve approximately 11.4 million customers daily.
Almost 90% of Burger King restaurants are privately owned and operated, or
franchised. While Burger King Corporation sets standards for exterior store appearance, food quality and menu, individual owners have control over hours of operations, interior decor, pricing and staff uniforms and wages. For example,
Magic Johnson's company
Magic Johnson Enterprises purchased 30 Burger King stores on
June 7,
2004. The stores were redecorated with a sports memorabilia theme. These locations officially reopened on
December 3,
2004.
Burger King has a longstanding presence at
U.S. Army and
U.S. Air Force installations worldwide, dating back to the 1980s under a contract with
Army and Air Force Exchange Service. Today, while other chains such as
Taco Bell,
Popeye's and
Subway have a presence on military bases, virtually every major Army and Air Force installation hosts a BK restaurant.
Many Burger King outlets, even inside cities, require customers to operate a motor vehicle to purchase food during late evening hours.
Burger King is one of the few companies that does not accept communication via email.
Hungry Jack's profile
When Burger King decided to expand its operations into
Australia, it found that its business name was already
trademarked by a man running a small takeaway food shop. As a result, Burger King provided the Australian franchisee,
Jack Cowin, with a list of possible alternative names that the Australian Burger King restaurants could be branded as. The names were derived from pre-existing trademarks already registered by Burger King and
Pillsbury (at that time, the parent company of Burger King). Cowin selected the branding 'Hungry Jack's', echoing his name and sentiment. '
Hungry Jack' - without the 'apostrophe S' - was actually a Pillsbury brand, being used in the US to market
pancake (flapjack) mixture. Accordingly, the first Australian franchise of the Burger King Corporation, established in
Perth in 1971, was branded as Hungry Jack's.
In 1986, Hungry Jack's purchased 11 failing Australian
Wendy's Hamburgers locations and rebranded them under the Hungry Jack's name.
1996 to 2001: Legal Proceedings
When the existing registered trademark in Australia for Burger King lapsed in 1996, the American parent company wanted
Cowin to change the Hungry Jack's outlets over to the Burger King name. Cowin resisted the change but despite his opposition, Burger King proceeded to open more than seventy outlets in
Australia under the Burger King name between 1996 and 2003. These were built upon existing franchise locations at international airports – the international territory apparently outside the Cowin licensing deal. In some cases, the new Burger King outlets were located very close to existing Hungry Jack's. As a result of Burger King's actions, Hungry Jacks Pty. Ltd. began legal proceedings in
Australia against the Burger King Corporation citing violation of the master franchising agreement.
In 2001, the case was finally resolved in favour of Hungry Jack's in a case that eventually included the Australian operating arm of
Royal Dutch Shell. As a result, the Burger King Corporation was ordered to pay $AUD 75 million to Hungry Jack's for breach of its franchise agreement.
[15] One final attempt was made by Burger King to appeal the decision to the
High Court of Australia[16]; however, this appeal was dismissed.
2002 to the present day
In 2002, Burger King Australia exited the country and sold a 51% share of its Australian restaurants to TPF, the company that operates Burger King in New Zealand. In an attempt to improve rapidly falling sales, TPF re-branded its Burger King restaurants as Hungry Jack's in late 2003 believing that the Hungry Jack's name with its 30 year history was the stronger brand. A market research survey conducted six months after the re-branding showed that Burger King had been the preferred brand, and that the words most often chosen by respondents in the survey to describe Hungry Jack's were "slow" and "dated".
In mid 2005, TPF decided to exit the Australian market and sold its 51% share of the former Burger King sites to Hungry Jack's Pty Ltd, the company operated by Jack Cowin.
[17]
Operational nuances
The
slogan "The burgers are better at Hungry Jack's" is well known in
Australia.
While Burger King's logo has since changed to the "blue crescent" design, the Hungry Jack's logo is still based on the previous Burger King logo, employing the simpler bun-and-filling motif.
Hungry Jack's sells the usual range of burgers but also offers an Australian speciality: the Aussie Burger. This burger is based on the traditional Australian
fish and chips shop favourite, including fried egg, bacon, onion, and
beetroot, with the traditional meat, lettuce, and tomato. Hungry Jack's locations are required to follow any menu changes made by Burger King.
Hungry Jack's breakfast menu, introduced in late 2005 in three states (
Queensland,
New South Wales, and
Northern Territory) and the other states on
October 31 2006, bears little resemblance to Burger King's US breakfast menu. The main breakfast sandwich is served on either an
English muffin,
baguette roll or as a wrap (
breakfast burrito) instead of a
croissant; the
hash browns are served as patties as opposed to
Tater Tots and they feature
pancakes.
[18][19]
The only trademarked sandwich products that HJ sells is the
Whopper and the
Ocean Catch sandwich. All other products go by a generic naming such as hamburger or chicken nuggets.
Hungry Jack's retains strong links with Perth, with the city's first team in the
Australian Football League, the
West Coast Eagles, having been sponsored by Hungry Jack's since their entry into the league in 1987.
Hungry Jack's Kids Club mascots are unique to the Australian franchisee, as opposed to other international locations that use one the two existing kid's mascots,
the Burger King Kids' Club or
the Honbatz. HJ does have a Kid's Club program similar to the US offering, offering themed birthday parties at its restaurants along with its Kid's Club Meals. One other noticeable difference between the HJ and BK children's programs is the placement of the
apostrophe in the name: HJ places it before the "
s" while BK places it after.
Hungry Jack's in Australia has trademarked the new slogan, 'Oh Yeah', which was featured in commercials that ran late 2005/early 2006. Other changes at Hungry Jack's include new fresh salads and deli-style baguettes.
Many Hungry Jack's restaurant locations are designed around a 1950s/1960s styled theme. Background music from this era may be played within the restaurant (occasionally through a '50s era styled Jukebox) with associated contemporary pictures and memorabilia utilized as part of the interior decor. In the larger sit-down style restaurants, the seats and tables are laid out in a 1950s
diner style.
Products
Main articles: Burger King products
As part of its reorganization, BK introduced several new products to its menu, including several new or revamped chicken products, a new salad line and its BK Joe brand of coffee. Some of the new products, including its
Enormous Omelet Sandwich line
[20][21] and the
BK Stacker line
[22], brought negative attention due the large portion size, amounts of unhealthy fats and trans-fats.
Advertising
In
January 2003, BK hired the
Miami-based advertising firm of
Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B) to resuscitate the moribund advertising account of BK
[23]. As one of CP+B new advertising strategies, they revived
the Burger King character used during BKs
1970s/
1980s Burger King Kingdom advertising campaign as a
caricatured variation now simply called "the King". Additionally, CP+B created a series of
viral web-based advertisements to compliment the various television and print promotional campaigns on sites such as
MySpace[24] and various BK corporate pages
[25][26]. These viral tactics coupled several other new advertisement campaigns, in addition to the new product introductions, drew considerable attention, both positive
[27] and negative
[28], to BK and helped TPG and its partners realize about $367 million in
dividends.
Logos
The famous Burger King "bun halves" logo made its debut in 1969 and endured well into the 1990s. As its name implies, it was meant to resemble a
hamburger: the logo had two orange semi-circular "buns" surrounding the name, which was the "meat" of the logo. In 1994 BK updated the logo with a graphical tightening, replacing the aging "bulging" font with a smoother font with rounded edges. In addition, all secondary signing, such as roof and directional signs, was also updated with new rounded font.
In 1999, BK again revised its logo. The new Burger King logo is a stylized version of the original "bun halves" logo. BK changed the color of the restaurant's name from orange to red lettering, while leaving them sandwiched between two yellow bun halves. The new logo also tilts the bun halves and the
font on an
axis, has a smaller "bun" motif and wraps the burger with a blue crescent whipping around the buns giving it a more
circular appearance. Most restaurants did not acquire newer signs with the new logo, menus, and drive-thru ordering speakers until 2001. Again all secondary signage was updated with the new logo and type face, and all sign posts were repainted to match the blue coloring of the new crescent from their original black.
[29]
The Hungry Jack's logo is based on the original Burger King "bun halves" design, and has been used since Hungry Jack's founding in 1971. HJ currently uses an updated version of the "bun halves" logo, featuring the smoother font used in revised Burger King logo from 1994.
Countries with Burger King restaurants
See also
Other hamburger QSR vendors:
★
Carl's Jr.
★
Hardee's
★
Jack in the Box
★
McDonald's (biggest competitor)
★
Sonic
★
Wendy's
References
1. Burger King Domestic and Global facts
2. History of Burger King Corporation Answers.com
3. Burger King back in Japan after 6 years Yuri Kageyama
4. How Pillsbury 'stole' DiversiFoods for just 0 million Rick Telberg
5. DiversiFoods Net
6. Hyde leaves DiversiFoods-BK; Bolton takes reins as president David Zuckerman
7. Are private buyouts good for the economy? By Mark Trumbull
8. The BURGER KING Brand Enters Poland Burger King press release
9. Burger King Mulls Franchises Maria Levitov
10. Burger King increases number of restaurants in UAE
11. Burger King® To Expand in Egypt
12. Burger King May Add 250 Asia Stores Within Five Years
13. History of Branding
14. BKC 2006 Annual Report
15.
16.
17. In Australia, Burger King to become 'Hungry Jack's' South Florida Business Journal, 30 May 2003
18. Hungry Jack's menu
19. Burger King's US menu
20. Burger King to offer whopper of a breakfast sandwich Bruce Horovitz
21. Word of the day: Meat'Normous
22. Burger King Launches Line Of Jumbo High-Rise Burgers Herb Weisbaum
23. Burger King Corporation Selects Crispin Porter + Bogusky As Lead Creative Advertising Agency
24. Burger King in MySpace campaign
25. Burger King Goes Tasteless
26. Burger King's Table Guests Robyn Tippins
27. Burger King Has Fun With Subservient Chicken Viral Campaign B.L. Ochman
28. Is Burger King Perverting Children? Evelyn Nussenbaum
29. Burger King Shares Extensive Transformation Plans press release on BizJornals on Bison.com
External links
Official websites
★
Official Honbatz website
Other sites
★
Burger King & Food Safety
★
Burger King News
★
How many calories does Burger King food have?
★
Yahoo! Burger King Corporation Company Profile at Yahoo! Finance
★
Burger King Corporation Company Profile at Hoovers.com
★
Article on BK Kids Club no ProgressiveBoink.com
★
Disgruntled Ex-Burger King Employee Page A parody/commentary site of QSR restaurants.
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
