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Season 2! Here we go...
We tricked producer Chris Higgins into helping us!
We have some News, we have Mike's stories of Working at a Hamburger Restaurant, and of course we have our Case Study Review.
đ§ As we readied this episode the news broke of E. coli cases related to the Quarter Pounder! We dive in and will continue to explore what this means.
đ Probably the biggest change to this season of HBR is that Mike is now working at a hamburger restaurant in southern California. Producer Chris Higgins asks Mike about why he chose this.
đ€ And then we have the Case Study! This first week we're digging into McDonald's Corp.: Managing a Sustainable Supply Chain by Ray A. Goldberg and Jessica Droste Yagan.Both Zach and Mike agree that this is one of the best case studies they have ever read!
The case study is a Shakespearean story of two warring brands â McDonaldâs and Greenpeace â and how they came together to fight the clearcutting of the Amazon rainforest. While the focus of the piece is on McDonaldâs and its willingness to work with Greenpeace, we were far more fascinated by the complexity of the supply chain logistics required to run a global operation like McDonaldâs.For more subscribe at https://www.hamburgerbusinessreview.com
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Politics and McDonaldâs
There is a delightful amount of âElect Mayor McCheeseâ fan created imagery, which is a wonderful escape from the brutal reality of the US Presidential Election. But never before has McDonaldâs played such a role in politics, and so today we explore some context about what the heck is happening.
Why Are We Covering Politics?!
Donald Trump is purportedly scheduled to work the fry station at McDonaldâs in Philadelphia on Saturday, October 19th.
Trump canât stop obsessing over Harrisâs McDonaldâs job. So now heâs off to work the fryer at the fast food joint.
We think this is perhaps more than just a publicity stunt and the subtext here is nothing less than the essential difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris & McDonaldâs
In November of 2012 the New York Times reported, With Day of Protests, Fast-Food Workers Seek More Pay:
The biggest wave of job actions in the history of Americaâs fast-food industry began at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday at a McDonaldâs at Madison Avenue and 40th Street, with several dozen protesters chanting: âHey, hey, what do you say? We demand fair pay.â
The unionization drive, called Fast Food Forward, is sponsored by community and civil rights groups â including New York Communities for Change, United NY.org and the Black Institute â as well as the Service Employees International Union. The campaign has deployed 40 organizers since January to rally fast-food workers behind unionization, saying the goal is to raise wages to $15 an hour.
This long running battle for fair pay for fast food workers is a big issue for Kamala Harris, and it puts her ideologically opposed to Donald Trump. Here is a Fight For Fifteen video with Harris posted on Facebook:
Trumpâs Beef
Initially it might seem Donald Trump is just jealous. We know he loves McDonaldâs and maybe he is mad that Kamala Harris gets to âclaimâ his favorite restaurant. But his response is so weird. Itâs both predictable and also uniquely Trump:
He claims she didnât work at McDonaldâs.
Like with Obamaâs birth certificate, he demands to see records that prove she worked there. This is an unhinged way to attack a political opponent.
Presidential Politics and McDonaldâs
There is a history of Presidents and hopefuls showing up at McDonaldâs to seem more like a âman of the people.â Some, like Bill Clinton, really liked McDonaldâs. There is a famous SNL skit about it (possibly based on this Clinton and Gore C-SPAN video).
But McDonaldâs has been used as a symbol of the people by many politicians. Ronald Reagan campaigned at a McDonaldâsâŠ
And Mitt Romney tried to win over some positive press coverage by handing out fries to reporters.
It's an amazing aspect of our democracy that the most powerful person would eat, and occasionally relish, a food that is so pervasive and maligned just to seem like a normal guy. (Seems easy enough but it can backfire and make you seem weird.)
McDonaldâs is like what Andy Warhol said about Coca-Cola:
What's great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. â Andy Warhol
Trump & McDonaldâs
Where Harris comes at McDonaldâs from the angle of the labor, Trump comes at McDonaldâs as a customer.
Like with Clinton, we know that Trump honestly loves to eat McDonaldâs. The most iconic image of Trump is him with fist raised in the air and blood on his face. But the other for me is from the White House dinner when the government was defunded, and he assembled a feast of fast food. He just looks so pleased with himself.
On an episode of Election Profit Makers they theorized that this election is barely a fight between the two candidates because Trump talks to his side and Harris talks to hers and other than one debate, they donât really interact. This limited interaction gives the McDonaldâs argument more weight, even though it is wildly stupid.
Why Is Trump Working at McDonaldâs?
On the surface he seems to be implying that Harris never worked at McDonaldâs because working there is easy, and she said it was hard. But the subtext here is that heâs saying McDonaldâs is an easy and small job, one that does not deserve higher pay or benefits.
He also figures that if he can cross the counter from customer to employee he can negate the labor power of Harrisâ punch. He is a self-professed âcounter-puncherâ and if he can undermine Harris edge out a little more media attention then that is a victory.
His measuring stick is attention, and people love talking about him working at the fry station.
Predictions
Zach: Yes, he will work at the fry station. No, it will not give him the election.
Mike: He will not âworkâ the fry station. He may be photographed standing near it. He may touch parts of it, but he wonât be working. And I agree, it wonât change anyoneâs mind or vote.
New HBR Crew Member
We are also incredibly excited to announce that the Hamburger Business Review team is expanding. Weâre bringing on the talented and experienced Chris Higgins as our producer for the second season (which will be the next episode you hear!).
What Chris lacks in McDonaldâs knowledge he makes up for with his technical audio skills and storytelling acumen. You might know Chris from his documentary series Best of Five: The Classic Tetris Champions, as writer/host of the Election Ride Home Podcast, from his writing for Mental Floss, or maybe his report for This American Life.
For Fun
This short film captured in a single aerial shot, shows a young manâs proposal to his girlfriend at a McDonald's drive-thru is interrupted by an eager customer offering help with their order. We donâtâ often recommend experimental shorts, but when we do, they are about McDonaldâs.
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Fehlende Folgen?
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Does McDonalds even celebrate the holidays? They did come out with a âholiday pieâ but it doesnât seem very festive. Back in 2000 they seemed to love SantaâŠ
Retail sales are expected to be up this holiday season, with bars and restaurants leading the way, so youâd think McDonalds would be leaning into the holiday cheer. But maybe when you are so dominant in the IEO space you don't need to flaunt it?
Whatâs IEO? They kept saying it at the Investor Day presentation and I had to look it up. Itâs the McDonaldâs segment of the restaurant industry and it stands for âInformal Eating Out.â This includes other Quick Service Restaurants (QSR), casual dining full-service restaurants, street stalls, specialist coffee shops, and juice or smoothing bars. Basically any place that makes your neighborhood nice is the enemy of McDonalds.
Rather than discuss the doom and gloom of McDonalds ongoing battle for third spaces we have our Holiday Special for you. Itâs been about four months since we wrapped season one and we have a lot to cover:
* Zachâs annual McTrot!
* McDonalds position in the Israel/Palestine conflict
* CosMcâs
* The $MCD stock price
* Where is Santa?
* Expanding McDonaldâs IP
* HBR Merch!
* And whatâs could be next for HBR
đ Hamburger Business Review Merchandise
There is no way youâre getting any of these before Christmas, but thatâs the point. These are not christmas gifts. This is something you buy for yourself. Because after listening to Season One youâre also a Hamburger Expert!
There is nothing like a fleece vest and a matching cap to make you feel like some combo of tech industry titan and delivery person. Itâs great.
The HBR Hat in Mustard
An embroidered hat with with HBR logo. Discreet, because maybe people will think this is associated with a fancy college, but also a signal to all business burger enthusiasts with the burger icon.
The HBR Mug in Mustard
Add a splash of burger business to your morning coffee or tea ritual! These ceramic mugs not only have a beautiful burger design and bold HAMBURGER BUSINESS REVIEW on them, but also a bright yellow rim, handle, and inside, so the mug helps keep your focus on the business of burgers.
The HBR Fleece Vest
Make the right choice with this Columbia fleece vest! Itâs a modern yet classic piece thatâs perfect for layering during cold weather and youâre ready for your business conference in Switzerland, Idaho, or the Bay Area!
Thanks again to all our listeners and supporters. Weâre excited about the future of the burger business and canât wait to get back to it.
-K. Mike Merrill + Zach Rose
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Grinding It Out is the title of Ray Krocâs 1977 autobiography and also an aspect of the personality that is needed to run the vast and massively powerful McDonaldâs Corporation. Throughout the ten episodes of Hamburger Business Review weâve taken to referring to the CEO as sitting on the Golden Throne.
"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground." -Cersei Lannister
There have only been 10 CEOs of McDonaldâs:
* Ray Kroc: 1961 to 1973
* Fred Turner 1973: to 1989
* Michael Quinlan: 1989 to 1998
* Jack Greenberg: 1998 to 2002
* Jim Cantalupo: 2002 to 2004
* Charles Bell: 2004 to 2005
* Jim Skinner: 2005 to 2012
* Don Thompson: 2012 to 2015
* Steve Easterbrook: 2015 to 2019
* Chris Kempczinski: 2019 to Present
Chris Kempczinski took the âGolden Throneâ and became CEO of McDonaldâs after the sudden departure of his mentor and boss due to an inappropriate workplace romance, and heâs the first CEO of the modern social media era with his Instagram account @chrisk_mcd.
Weâre looking at the 2019 case study titled simply âMcDonaldâs Corporationâ that looks at the situation when Chris took over. He has taken the âEasterbrook Inititivesâ and developed that into a wonderful âAccelerating The Archesâ strategic plan.
We also use this as an opportunity to look back over our first season of Hamburger Business Review and take some educated guesses about what we might see happen next.
Thanks for listening! We hope you learned about more than just the burger business during season one. There really is very little in our modern day culture that doesnât touch McDonaldâs and itâs been an absolute joy to share these case studies and discussions with you.
In Grimace We Trust,-Mike & Zach
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Weâre discussing a strangely topical case study from 2013 called McDonald's Twitter Campaign: Hype Versus Reality, which is about how mean social media is.
It starts with a promoted "#MeetTheFarmers" hashtag designed to introduce the wholesome sourcing of McDonaldâs. Something like this:
To boost âengagementâ they switched from from #MeetTheFarmers to #McDStories halfway through the first day of the campaign, hoping to get regular customers to say wonderful things. Of course, that isnât how Twitter has ever workedâŠ
The new hashtag got peopleâs attention! McDonaldâs quickly pivoted back to the original #MeetTheFarmers as more people piled on their #McDStories.
A few days later, the media picked up the story and ran negative coverage with mocking headlines. In the articles they were able to highlight McDonaldâs blunder and quote the negative tweets. This coverage turned the minor misstep into a major mistake.
Following along with the case study we discuss what happened, and what we can all learn from McDonaldâs mistake and the evolution of how brands use social media.
Note: This episode mentions the Grimace takeover of McDonaldâs Twitter but was recorded before the reaction videos of the Grimace shake became a trend.
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Iâve been waiting for this case study all season, and itâs such a weird business attempt that there are two case studies about the Golden Arch Hotel, an attempted McDonaldâs hotel franchise.
In 2001 the CEO of McDonaldâs in Switzerland got the green light to apply the franchise DNA of McDonaldâs to a hotel. As a frequent business traveller Urs Hammer thought of everything, and used his deep understanding of scalable efficient service to design a hotel like no other.
Itâs not really a spoiler to say that it failed. But it failed in a pretty interesting way, and in fact the hotel itself continues to operate under a different brand. The URL goldenarchhotel.com now redirects to the rebranded Radisson, with the super sized McDonaldâs still attached to the structure.
The infamous exposed showers are still there, now covered with scenes from around Switzerland to provide a little more privacy.
Join us as we imagine what it was like to pull into the not-so-grand Golden Arch Hotel and chat with our fellow confused travelers over a beer some chicken nuggets at the hotel bar.
Your Hosts,K. Mike Merrill and Zach Rose
Case Studies:
* McDonald's and the Hotel Industry
* Golden Arch Hotel: McDonald's Adventure in the Hotel Industry
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What does artificial intelligence have to do with burgers? As weâre learning at Hamburger Business Review, there is nothing that McDonaldâs doesnât touch, including AI. Following their ambitious Velocity Growth Plan McDonaldâs acquired Dynamic Yield in 2019 as part of a strategy to use big data for more personalization. The digitization of McDonaldâs has been in the works for years, and is incorporated at every level, from the store and drive-thru remodels to the focus on the app and delivery services.
In this episode we look at the 2020 case study McDonald's: Can A Behemoth Lead in the Era of Artificial Intelligence? by Fabrizio Di Muro of the University of Winnipeg.
Coming Up Next:
Next episode weâre looking at the ill-fated McDonaldâs hotel launch. And after that we will review the social media strategy for selling more burgers. For our final episode of the season weâll take a look at everything Chris Kempczinski inherited as the newly appointed CEO.
Hamburger Business Review is a reader-supported publication. While all content is made free, we couldnât do this without the support of our listeners.
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Beware the beautiful eyes of Bill Ackman, the CEO and founder of Pershing Square Capital Management. When he gets a crush on a business it usually means he has some bold new plan to make drastic changes in order to achieve drastic profits.
In 2015 the gaze of Ackman was on Wendyâs, which he pressured into selling off the profitable Tim Hortonâs chain. Ackman sold his shares at a substantial profit, and then stock price later collapsed.
When he later took on McDonaldâs the process wasnât quite as smooth. Was his idea flawed or was it that McDonaldâs is already an efficient and well run company? We dive into this topic of activist investors in the burger space with a special guest, Marcus Estes, who helps provide some larger context to the analysis of the case study McDonaldâs, Wendyâs, and Hedge Funds: Hambuger Hedging?
Coming up next:
We will be reading case studies about McDonaldâs and AI and the ill-fated attempt by McDonaldâs to enter the hospitality industry.
Housekeeping:
This is episode six of ten for the inaugural season of Hamburger Business Review. Your financial support allows us to continue to buy Harvard Business School case studies about the burger industry. Thank you.
Hamburger Business Review is a reader-supported publication. While all content is made free, we couldnât do this without the support of our listeners.
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The Arch Deluxe was a massive undertaking for McDonaldâs. This 1996 case study gives us a history of the company, a look at some attempts at premium burgers, and then drops us into the launch of the Arch Deluxe, what was supposed to be the launch of a new burger platform within McDonaldâs targeting a more sophisticated customer.
It may no longer be on the menu, but it was an important moment in the constant evolution of McDonaldâs.
In Other Hamburger News:
* The Decline of Fuddruckers⊠What Happened? on YouTube by Company Man (thanks Douglas for the tip!)
* McDonaldâs launches nine-carat gold ring to celebrate Kingâs coronation
* The new burger king: The push for Wendyâs in Australia
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Today weâre looking at the career of Jan Fields. She almost quit after her first day, but sticking it out paid off in a series of promotions that eventually led her to the executive level. This case study is a battle between the idea of the âMcJobâ and the culture of McDonaldâs that loves the executive storyline as a recruiting tool.
We also look at the current CEO of McDonaldâs is a factory clone of the modern day business executive. And stay though to the end as we wrap the recent McDonaldâs news!
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If the Egg McMuffin isnât enough, then how can McDonaldâs win breakfast?
In this 2004 case study we look at the launch of the McCafĂ© in Canada as a way to compete against the Canadianâs national loyalty to their maple leafed coffee purveyor Tim Hortonâs.
In the end we are stymied by what we consider a bit of an underwhelming case study.
Does anyone associate strongly with McCafĂ©? Like they do with Starbucks or Dunkinâ? That seems unlikely, and yet McDonaldâs plain coffee has been better than Dunkinâ for years in taste tests. But itâs about more than just plain coffee...
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In August of 1998 the Russian financial crisis threatened to destroy George Cohon's 14 year quest to bring McDonald's to Russia. The country was in a state of emergency with massive inflation and widespread economic disarray.
Join us as we talk about the dramatic story and come up with our own unique solution to the problem presented in this case study.
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This is the pilot episode of Hamburger Business Review that proved the concept of how interesting it can be to talk about Harvard Business Reviewâs case studies about McDonaldâs.
We made the following announcement on March 15th.
Pilot Order: Hamburger Business Review
Experimental Garden Group co-host Mike Merrill and burger innovator Zach Rose are set to co-host and produce a Hamburger Business Review pilot episode in mid to late March of 2023.
Merrill and Rose started to discuss the project after Rose joined the Experimental Garden Group investment club and Merrill later advised Rose on his Thanksgiving Day McTrot quest to patronize every McDonald's in Manhattan on foot. In discussions about how to extend Rose's quest the idea for Hamburger Business Review was developed.
In Hamburger Business Review Merrill and Rose will discuss a Harvard Business Review case study about McDonald's. The latter HBR has over 30 case studies focused on McDonald's ranging from 1980 to 2020. In addition to reviewing the history of these case studies Rose and Merrill will also talk about the current state of McDonald's, especially as it relates to the operations of the chain in Manhattan and Rose's first hand experience with over four dozen of them.
Merrill and Rose are hopeful for a series order after they finish the pilot when Merrill will ask his shareholders to commit him to 8 to 10 episodes with financing coming from supporters and listeners.
We recorded on March 18th and quickly edited the episode before asking the KmikeyM shareholders for a ten episode order. The proposal passed with 74% support!
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