Burger King targets families through movie partnerships in latest stage of turnaround

While Burger King is introducing the next phase of his turning efforts, the fast food chain tries to lure families back to his restaurants with colored Whopper rolls and child-friendly film partnerships.

From Tuesday the Restaurant Brands International The chain sells new menu items inspired by the remake “Live Action” from “How to Train Your Dragon”. The collaboration is more than just a one-off partnership-it is part of the broader strategy of Burger King to increase American sales.

“Where we are really starting to lean now that we have made some progress in both operations and in our restaurants, is a family-first marketing strategy,” Burger King Us and Canada President Tom Curtis told CNBC.

The American company of Burger King has been in Ommodus for more than 2½ years. After having hit backrest rivals McDonald's And Wendy'sThe company announced to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a comeback strategy to renovate its restaurants, improve its activities and spend it on advertisements. The chain even bought his largest American franchisee with the aim of accelerating the remodels of the restaurant.

“We notice that there will be chapters if we go through time, and at the moment this chapter is of the family strategy, where we have done enough work and have transformed our restaurant activities to the extent we are proud of,” Curtis said. “We invite families again and we notice that we get a better retention when they come back.”

Curtis said that focusing on families Burger King gives the opportunity to attract customers in cohorts of age, from millennials to generation alpha, which is approximately defined as people born between 2010 and 2025. Plus, the enthusiastic use by parents of social media means that the word spreads quickly, making the approach a leg, giving a leg up compared to focusing on a single demography that is not enthusiastic.

The menu items with a limited time theme include the whopper grilled by Dragon Flame, with a red and orange-marbled sandwich; Fiery Dragon Mozzarella Frisian, made with Calabrian Chili peppering; Rising strawberry lemonade; And the chocolate ice cream from the Viking, crumbling with Hershey's syrup and black and green cookies.

Movie cooperation is nothing new for fast food – or Burger King. It was one of the first fast food chains that leaned in films. In 1977 the chain sold “Star Wars” drinking glasses prior to the release of the film.

McDonald's was not far behind, and followed two years later with a happy meal with a Star Trek-theme, in which decades of film, TV and toys tie-ins focused on children. More recently, the collaboration of the Golden Arches with “A Minecraft Movie” in more than 100 markets in the US within two weeks was sold out, about half the time reserved for the promotion.

In the more recent past of Burger King, under the leadership of Curtis, the chain had two major partnerships: one with “Spider-Man: opposite the Spider-Verse” two years ago and another with the Addams Family Franchise, Timed for Halloween last year.

Both menus contain whoppers with thematic, colored sandwiches, painted using natural colors, such as beet juice or UBE.

“Do not have artificial dyes and colors is something that has been important to us for a while,” Curtis said.

Burger King uses natural dyes because artificial colorants of the food have come under fire from health -bound parents. After a push from the secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Of health and human services, the Food and Drug Administration recently announced plans to abolish the use of synthetic dyes based on petroleum in food and drinks.

The two earlier collaborations were also the best-selling Whopper innovations of Burger King, based on the number sold, according to Curtis.

“What we found specifically in the Addams family promotion was, while we groove the building in the building, the traffic was quite flat, but the turnover had risen,” he said, to attribute revenue growth to families who have a higher average check than a solo dinner or a few.

The expected sales lift of the “How to Train Your Dragon” menu comes at a crucial moment for Burger King.

The comeback of the company came across the most recent quarter. The sale of in the US in the US in the same store fell 1.1%, in which a branch-wide malaise is reflected as fears about the economy and bad weather kept dinners at home.

But Curtis is convinced that Burger King is on the right track and points to the relative outperformance of the chain compared to his two biggest competitors: McDonald's and Wendy's.

“I know they are scrambling, and sometimes, to be honest, copying some things we do, what, you know, plagiarism is the most sincere form of flattery,” he said. “If we see them do that, it gives us more conviction to stay on course.”

When the live-action version of “How to Train Your Dragon” comes to the cinema on 13 June, it is expected to be one of the big blockbusters of the summer. After all, the animated trilogy has yielded more than $ 1.6 billion worldwide.

Burger King has similar expectations for his menu binding.

The earlier success of the Spider-Verse and Addams Family Menu items pushed Burger King to “dramatic” his prediction for the “How to Train Your Dragon” menu, according to Curtis. And Burger King is also planning to change his advertising strategy, which could drastically increase the demand for the grilled whoppers fell by Dragon.

“In the past we would simply associate ourselves with the film ownership, but we would not necessarily advertise the association – you would just see it and hear about it in social media,” Curtis said.

The promotion is supposed to run at the beginning of July, but in the event that Burger King burns his stock in just three weeks, the chain is willing to check which locations are from the menu items. That is a lesson that it learned during his Spid-Vers promotion, when it had to launch a tracker on his website to help customers find the coveted Kanjer.

As it learns from every experience, Burger King plans to dive deeper into franchise partner shelves, bet that the extra effort will stimulate long -term loyalty for the brand.

“We will do a few of them in the past,” Curtis said. “We have one against the end of the year that we are very, very enthusiastic about … And we also get something in line for next year. We all go in each of these.”

Publication: Comcast owns CNBC and Universal Studios, the producer and distributor of “How to Train Your Dragon”.