…Huh?

With this ad, Burger King effectively commoditizes itself while positioning McDonald’s as the product/taste leader. While Burger King will undoubtedly encourage some switching (though how many people will change their routine to save a buck or so?), should the chain ever wish to raise the price of their knock-off, we suspect those customers they do convert will quickly return to McDonald’s to buy the genuine article.

And is it worth what they are giving up in terms of positioning the Burger King brand?

Television viewers: McDonald’s is “where it’s at” in fast food. How do we know? Because Burger King told us so in this ad. And based on our own work with McDonald’s in a previous life, we can bet the communications folks there are basking in this free publicity.

Here’s a little gratis communications consulting for any businesses/organizations/brands that aim to dethrone the number one player in their respective industries: don’t reinforce your competitor’s strength or commoditize yourself by promoting your products and services as cheaper, copied alternatives.

Burger King is the second-largest fast food chain in the world. With this ad, they appear destined to remain #2.

This morning we received an offer from Groupon (incidentally a pretty cool site/service for Los Angelenos) offering us a hotel stay and extras worth $424 for only $150. (After today, you can see the deal here for a few more months.) We immediately noticed this language in the offer:

“For $150, you’ll get a romantic retreat at SeaCrest Resort complete with ocean-view room, wine tasting with appetizers, vineyard tour, bottle of wine, and $10 toward Marie Callender’s…”

We don’t know about you or your significant others, but Marie Callender’s is not typically how we like to end wine-filled romantic beach retreats. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Marie Callender’s. It’s just that as a brand it’s not really the right accompaniment for a resort, a weekend or an outing purporting to be escapist, passionate or vinicultural.

Escapist, Passionate, Vinicultural

Marie Callender's

There’s a lesson here for b2b brands and the professionals in charge of them. Do the partners, third-parties and ancillary products/services associated with your brand do it justice?

• If you want the brand to be seen as technologically advanced, you’d better make sure your salespeople don’t show up to meetings running PowerPoint 2004 on Windows 98.
• If you want the brand associated with service, you might not want to co-market with TimeWarner Cable.
• If you want the brand to be known as dependable, giving away crappy bags that fall apart a week after the tradeshow isn’t doing you any favors.

If you’re serious about building your brand, then it’s up to you to ensure that you surround it with other brands that present it to best effect.

It takes planning, it isn’t always cheap and it often involves someone or something you can’t directly control, but hey – if building great brands was easy it just wouldn’t be so rewarding, now would it?