Burger King U.S. & Canada’s chief marketing officer Joel Yashinsky knows that listening to the customer is at the heart of all great marketing.
“We’re really trying to put the brand into the hands of our guests and engage with them in ways that haven’t really been done before,” says Yashinsky. The veteran QSR marketer joined the burger chain last year after four years as chief marketing officer at Applebee’s and almost two decades at McDonald’s.
Since he has taken over marketing, the company has set out on a new trajectory inspired by consumers. In February, the company’s U.S. president Tom Curtis, created a hotline where customers could call him directly to share suggestions, a build on the company’s “Have it Your Way” platform. The line received tens of thousands of calls, many of which Curtis took himself in the “Whopper by You” campaign, where guests could share the toppings they would like to add onto Whoppers. In March, the brand fired the King mascot and made the customer king in a campaign called “There’s A New King And It’s You.”
“Our guests have been really excited about having that ability to influence our menu and create inspired menu items and collaborations,” explains Yashinsky.
The new direction also includes film collaborations. For instance, Burger King is partnering with Disney for the first time in more than two decades on a May the Fourth promotion, which includes a new Mandalorian-themed menu.
“As part of this overall brand elevation work and this platform that we’ve designed and developed and really co-created with our guests,” Yashinksky says. “We want to do everything we can to welcome every guest into our restaurants and to come back and visit Burger King for those who haven’t done so in a little while, for those who’ve never been.”
Brand Innovators caught up with Yashinsky from his office in Miami to discuss firing the king, the Star Wars partnership and building loyalty with a customer-first approach. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you talk about the decision to fire the king and reframe the marketing?
The king was polarizing and in some cases, even offensive to other guests. When the king was launched in around 2005, we saw a dramatic fall off in our kids and family business. There were moments where the king was creepy and off-putting, especially to kids and parents. What we really want to do as a brand is welcome everybody and make everybody feel comfortable.
We’re trying to take that to another level by listening to our guests, elevating the brand and providing real actions. For example, the Whopper has always been iconic and it’s always tasted great. But there were times it wasn’t served at its optimum best and we’re focused on improving that in our restaurants. We developed a new glazed crown bun that sits atop the Whopper along with a box that protects the Whopper. With the economic pressures, other brands are shrinking value in different ways. But we’re really trying to make sure we’re investing and improving what we do and how we provide it to our guests. We’ve gone from firing the king to there’s a new king and it’s you. All of that represents the internal brand ethos that’s always been a part of Burger King in terms of “Have it Your Way” and putting the guests at the forefront.
Can you talk about how this guest-led menu innovation for the Star Wars promotion?
We have four new menu items that will be part of the Mandalorian and Grogu movie collaboration. Our Barbecue Bounty Whopper, the Grogu Shake, Grogu Garlic Chicken Fries and our Imperial Cheddar Tots. These are all really designed to create an experience and engagement with the movie, the Burger King brand and our restaurants. We wanted to provide some really fun and engaging and tasty menu items that people are going to love. They are inspired by the movie with great packaging, surrounded with great toys for the kids’ meal program. It includes fun advertising commercials and creative content on social media that brings that full experience to life.
Can you talk about the importance of showing up in these cultural moments?
We’re really focused on doing everything in the biggest and best way possible to create a great experience for our guests and that includes the partnerships that we develop. Our objective is to work with partners whose films will resonate most with our guests. We worked with “The Addam’s Family,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and “SpongeBob Squarepants.” We’ve been able to create a really special connection with our brand, as well as with our guests who are fans of both. We’re seeing guests coming into Burger King who haven’t been in a while. But because of the way we’re executing a SpongeBob promotion or Mandalorian and Grogu promotion. We’re having the opportunity to reintroduce ourselves to our guests through these partnerships.
We have some really fun advertising, working with Disney, creating some ads that really gained attention because they incorporate key characters in the movie, from the movie that are going to be engaging with Burger King and our menu items that are on this menu, on a special menu.
We’ve got some great social content. We’ve got, and we’re kicking this all off on May the 4th from the adult perspective.
Now that you’re bringing people back and increasing traffic through the door, what are you doing to maintain loyalty?
We want to really build our relationship with our guests in a true and authentic manner and really bring forward through all of the potential channels to do that. Through CRM and our loyalty program, we continue to invest in that program, invest in our crowns program and how people can engage with our brand through their visits into our restaurants. We want to make sure we’re also utilizing the information we have to provide them the types of rewards that they want to have.
There are other brands that may impact or change their rewards program. We’re looking to keep it and improve upon it by leveraging the information and understanding we have from what our guests are telling us what they want. Loyalty and building that with our brand is something that will come naturally through this elevation effort. It’ll also come through our work to better engage our guests and deliver what they’re looking for. Whether it’s through our rewards program or menu items and innovation, whether it’s through our “Whopper by You” campaign, all of these things are tied together.
Can you talk about how some of your past experiences at brands like Applebee’s have helped kind of shape your perspective on the business?
Having spent 18 years at McDonald’s and seven years at Applebee’s, I certainly try to utilize my experiences and understandings and try to find some benefit in all these gray hairs that will help me provide some insights and perspective. There is something to be said for experience and understanding what works and what’s important to our guests, what’s important to our team members. One of the things that I’m focused on too is really developing our team and bringing forward the next generation of marketers that can be successful in their efforts. It all really goes back to focusing on the guests. If you do that, you’re going to win.
What are the shifts in consumer behavior in dining out and how are you adapting to these?
It’s always evolving and we’re trying to obviously stay very close with the data and the analytics and listening. What we’re doing with our guests by taking these tens of thousands of phone calls is a more direct way to hear what’s on their mind. They’ve been giving us some great suggestions and ideas on menu items, our CRM platform and our rewards platform. They’re giving us a lot of ideas and thoughts and feedback that we welcome. It’s impacting some of the things that will be coming later on this year in terms of our marketing campaigns, promotions and food innovation.
There’s certainly a lot of pressure on guests today economically. We’re seeing that create a dynamic within the category. People are pulling back a little bit. There’s a true concern that we want to be really sensitive to. That plays a factor in how we continue to create a great value proposition for our guests. We have seen changes to behavior, but we’ve been able to stay at the forefront, which is helping us really attain, retain and grow new guests. We’re staying very, very focused on our value platform and making sure that we’re adjusting as it goes along to help alleviate the significant pressure our customers are feeling right now.
Are there any marketing challenges keeping you up at night?
Our guests are facing all these pressures and we want to make sure we do whatever we can to deliver a value experience for them that they appreciate so that they feel good about coming and spending their hard earned dollars at Burger King. We want to make sure that everything we do is focused on really creating and developing an experience that works for them. It’s more than just marketing. It’s working to create that overall experience and how we do that is what I think about a lot at night. We’re making good progress at the moment, but it’s always changing and that’s part of what keeps me up at night because it can change from day to day or week to week.
What are the opportunities that you see in the market?
The opportunities are just to be who we are, not chase after what others are chasing after. We are Burger King, we want to be the king of burgers. We will always be open to different opportunities when it comes to chicken or desserts and beverages. But what’s most important to our brand is that Burger King is for burgers. It’s not to say we won’t play in those other areas. We will, but we’ll make sure that our focus is predominantly where it should be from that standpoint. Beef costs remain at record highs, which is a challenge, but in credit to our entire organization, by keeping the focus on burgers, which is what we do best, and on what our guests are looking for, we avoid the costs of chasing other trends. If we can hold onto our strategy that’ll help us continue to build upon the success we’re starting to have.
