In the "Top 2004 China New Catering Enterprises 100" selected by the Ministry of Commerce in June 5438+/October 65438+March, McDonald's, which ranked second for several years in a row, has disappeared, while Yum! , including KFC, Pizza Hut and other businesses, ranked first. According to the Beijing Times, McDonald's has been reluctant to announce its sales in the past ranking process, and the ranking party can only include McDonald's in the list with a rough estimate of more than 6 billion. This year, the Ministry of Commerce requires enterprises to provide their sales, and McDonald's, which does not publish data, can only be excluded from the top 100 list. McDonald's is unwilling to disclose these figures voluntarily. According to the industry, its sales figures are lower than those of its old rival KFC, which just opened its1500th store in China, while McDonald's currently has only 700 stores.
In western countries, the living environment of western-style fast food giants has been challenged, and their sales performance has been declining in recent years. In China market, McDonald's and KFC, as imported products in China market, have a strong sales growth. These two Western-style fast food giants are actively striving for the favor of China, a big eastern country with a huge consumer population, showing a brand-new competitive ecology in the pursuit.
The health strategy is evenly matched.
The voice of "anti-Western fast food" has never stopped in western countries. If you only eat foreign fast food three times a day for 30 days, what will people become? Morgan Spurlock, a young American director, boldly turned himself into a mouse. In this documentary called "Supersize Me", Morgan proved the harm of western-style fast food to human health with personal experiments. This healthy man, with a height of 1.9 m and a weight of 1.85 kg, finally got sick after eating McDonald's for a month.
In the United States, McDonald's and KFC even encountered legal problems: Bill Lockyer, the Attorney General of California, recently filed a lawsuit against nine famous chain fast food restaurants and food manufacturers, asking the court to force them to use warning labels to indicate the content of acrylamide, a carcinogen, in their French fries and chips. This is the first time that an American prosecutor has filed a lawsuit against the problem that French fries contain carcinogens.
China consumers' health concept is also quietly changing, and they begin to have doubts about the unhealthy nutrition, no nutrition and easy obesity of western-style fast food. However, the fierce opposition has not yet been highlighted.
Now, western-style fast food companies spare no effort to emphasize their health strategies in order to nip in the bud. Recently, a group of brand-new KFC TV advertisements were broadcast on CCTV and other major TV stations. Advertisements are presented by ordinary consumers, KFC suppliers, nutritionists and medical experts of KFC Food Health Advisory Committee, conveying KFC's determination to make healthy food all the time.
In close cooperation with the health strategy, KFC started sports marketing. In 2004, gymnast Li, tennis champions Li Ting and Sun of Athens Olympic Games all became the leaders of KFC's "Sports Group" plan, and KFC launched a three-person basketball match nationwide. Wang Qun, Senior Director of Public Affairs of Yum! China Catering Group said that the health and vitality of these sports elites have been integrated into KFC's brand spirit and enriched KFC's brand connotation.
Winning the trust of consumers has become an urgent problem that western fast food giants are seriously thinking about. As the leader of the fast food industry, McDonald's has also racked its brains in this strategy, keeping pace with KFC.
In March, 2004, following the "I like" global McDonald's brand activities, the sponsorship contract for the Olympic Games was renewed to 20 12, and the global cooperation with NBA star Yao Ming was announced. After that, McDonald's cooperated with China diving star Guo Jingjing, which was the first sports star spokesperson of China McDonald's in China market.
In March this year, McDonald's China Co., Ltd. announced that it would launch a series of activities of "Balanced Lifestyle" nationwide, inviting Guo Jingjing, Shen Xue, Zhao Hongbo, Zhang Lin and others who are popular in today's sports world to advocate a healthy and balanced lifestyle of "I like it if I eat well and exercise well". Lifestyle balancing activities are exactly the same as KFC.
Brand extension McDonald's steals the show
"Do you know anything about coffee?" It is estimated that many people will answer "I don't know" to this question, and may even ask "What? Coffee seller? " Miss Li's answer in Beijing is "Yes, in the Oriental Plaza where I work."
Indeed, there is a small shop called "Mai Coffee" on the first floor of Beijing Oriental Plaza, which provides snacks such as drinks and coffee. Mcafee (1993) was born in Australia. It mainly deals in all kinds of coffee and distinctive European snacks. After more than seven years of development, it has established more than 300 chain stores all over the world and become a unique member of the McDonald's family. China was the first place to introduce coffee, and the coffee in Beijing and Shenzhen was established in 2000 when McDonald's entered China for ten years. At present, the scale of wheat coffee in China is not large.
In addition to this interesting member, McDonald's announced in 2004 that its clothing and toy brand McKids began to enter the China market, and the first store of McKids has opened in Shanghai. McKids mainly provides children with clothing, shoes, toys, videos, books and other products. Independent of McDonald's restaurant in operation, it has its own store and adopts the outsourcing mode of production and sales. This brand was founded in 1987. In the 1990s, it began to set up franchise stores in Wal-Mart in the United States. At present, this brand only has a separate store operation in the United States.
The brand extension of McKids is obviously borrowed from the brand impression that McDonald's has penetrated into the hearts of children. In the documentary "Supersize Me", all the children tested can recognize "Uncle McDonald" in the pictures of the characters.
However, McKids seems to be in contradiction with McDonald's global "face change" in 2003. In that transformation activity generally recognized by the advertising industry, Uncle McDonald no longer took the children to play with a smile in the image of a children's paradise. He even sang RAP, danced street dance and sang "I'm Lovin' it" full of personality ("I like it").
In terms of brand extension, the rival KFC, which has been compared by people, has nothing to do.
The disparity in opening stores continues.
The global competition between McDonald's and KFC is different from what we experienced in China. The two are not a heavyweight in the world. McDonald's is the boss. At present, there are more than 30,000 stores in 12 1 countries and regions around the world, with a global turnover of about 40.63 billion US dollars, while KFC only has more than1/000 chain stores in 80 countries and regions around the world. According to the statistics of American fast food sales and the number of restaurants in 2003 by Technomic, an American food industry research institution, McDonald's ranked first in the United States with13,609 restaurants, with sales exceeding $2.2/kloc-0.0 billion. On the other hand, KFC ranked seventh with 5,524 restaurants and sales of $4.936 billion.
In China, the total number of KFC restaurants is nearly 1500, which is twice that of McDonald's.
KFC's rapid expansion rate of nearly 70% in 2008 also distanced it from its competitors. This is closely related to their completely different expansion strategies. KFC implements the chain operation mode of "direct chain" and "franchise chain". 1999 began to implement the franchise of "starting from scratch". Since the end of 2004, 5% of 1200 restaurants have more than 60 franchisees. However, McDonald's only started this business model in 2002.
For the future development goal, McDonald's plans to open 100 restaurants in 2005, and by 2008, the number of McDonald's restaurants in mainland China will reach 1000, of which franchisees will account for 20%. KFC, on the other hand, said that in 2005, it will maintain the strategy of opening stores at a high speed, extend its network to third-and fourth-tier cities, and open 300 new restaurants in 2005 alone.
A more localized product and a less localized product.
The localized products seem to show their determination in the China market. In this contest, the numerical contrast is obviously one more and one less.
McDonald's localized products belong to the "Golden Triangle" launched in June 2004. It is said that the research and development time of this product is as long as one year, which is the first food using rice in China market and the first staple food besides Hamburg.
In contrast, KFC has developed a series of short-term and long-term products to meet the tastes of consumers in China, from the earliest hibiscus fresh vegetable soup to the later old Beijing chicken rolls, all-you-can-eat salads, corn salads, tender spring double bamboo shoots salads, swordfish bean salads, tomato egg drop soup, Sichuan spicy chicken, mushroom chicken porridge, seafood egg congee, medlar pumpkin porridge, egg rolls, pork tenderloin egg burgers and so on.
In this regard, a person in charge of McDonald's China once commented: "China consumers prefer poultry to beef, so McDonald's has also introduced new products that are very popular with customers in China, such as spicy chicken wings, spicy chicken legs and roasted chicken legs. These products are only available in China and are actively being localized. "
However, in the eyes of China consumers, KFC's Chinese fast food, such as rice, soup and porridge, as well as new products with China regional characteristics, such as Beijing-style old Beijing chicken rolls, Sichuan-style spicy chicken and Cantonese-style sweet and sour meat, all make them feel "real China", and the number and innovation speed of KFC's Chinese products are indeed better than McDonald's.
With China consumers' affirmation of KFC's efforts in China taste, Yum! in May this year! KFC's parent company simply launched its own Chinese fast food chain brand "Oriental White" in China.
In terms of localization, KFC's step is more thorough, but McDonald's analysis may also make sense. "When China consumers enter Western fast food restaurants, they still want to choose more foods that represent Western elements."