BK has come a long way over the last several years and the current management team deserves ample praise for repositioning the second largest QSR player back to its rightful position as the second largest player – no matter how far behind McDonald’s. A key part to BK’s turnaround has been finding its place in the new world of video games and indulgent loving consumers. The new BK is hip and relevant largely because of its marketing and ads which are well designed to appeal to its core SuperFan customer base. Further, the chain has done a good job of reinventing its menu with the classic barbell (high/low) strategy in order to offer both indulgent seeking and value loving customers what they want.
There is admittedly more work to do as operational excellence is still not what it could be and because the system is badly outdated and in need of a major, costly overhaul at a time when everyone’s finances are pinched. Also, we will see how flexible BK’s brand leadership can be at reacting to the ongoing consumer crunch that may last longer than a quarter or two this time. Can BK leadership tweak its core strategy without getting off track? In conclusion, BK finally has a solid foundation to build upon and we expect a continuation of the system’s relatively strong performance at least for the near-term.
