Burger King targets families with the team “How to train your dragon”

While Burger King is entering the next phase of its recovery efforts, the fast food chain is trying to attract families to its restaurants with colored hotcakes and cinematographic partnerships adapted to children.

From Tuesday, the Restaurant Brands International The chain will sell new menu elements inspired by the “live” remake of “how to train your dragon”. Collaboration is more than a simple unique partnership – it is part of Burger King's wider strategy to increase American sales.

“Where we are really starting to look at now that we have made progress in operations and in our restaurants, it is a family -oriented marketing strategy,” said President of Burger King US and Canada, Tom Curtis, CNBC.

US Burger King business has been in recovery mode for over 2 and a half years. After having taken from behind the rivals of hamburger McDonald's And WendyThe company has announced its intention to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a return strategy to renovate its restaurants, improve operations and spend in advertising. The chain even bought its largest American franchisee in order to accelerate its restaurant renovations.

“We note that there will be chapters to this as we spend time, and at the moment is this chapter of family strategy, where we have done enough work and transformed our restaurant operations insofar as we are proud,” said Curtis. “We invite families, and we see that we get better retention when they return.”

Curtis said that focusing on families gives Burger King the possibility of attracting customers through age cohorts, millennials to the Alpha generation, which is roughly defined as people born between 2010 and 2025. In addition, the eager use of social media by parents means that the word spreads quickly, giving the approach to a stage compared to the targeting of a single demograph line.

The elements of the limited themed menu include the roasted whopper with the flame of the dragon, with a red and orange marbled bun; Fiery Dragon Mozzarella Fries, based on Calabrian chili pepper; The strawberry silt; And the Viking chocolate sundae, with Hershey syrup and black and green cookies.

Cinematographic collaborations are nothing new for fast food – or Burger King. It was one of the first fast food chains to rely on films. In 1977, the channel sold “Star Wars” drinking glasses before the film's release.

McDonald's was not far behind, following with a Happy Faring on the theme of Star Trek two years later, triggering decades of film, television and toys for children. More recently, the collaboration of the Golden Arches with “A Minecraft Movie” on more than 100 markets sold within two weeks in the United States, around half of the time reserved for promotion.

In the most recent past of Burger King, under the direction of Curtis, the channel had two major partnerships: one with “Spider-Man: About the Spider-Verse” two years ago and another with the franchise of the Addams family, timed for Halloween last year.

These two menus included Whoppers with thematic rolls, dyed using natural dyes, such as beet juice or Ube.

“Not having artificial colors and colors is something that has been important for us for some time,” said Curtis.

Burger King The use of natural dyes occurs while artificial food colors have been criticized by parents holding health career. Following a push by the Secretary of Health and Social Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Food and Drug Administration recently announced its intention to remove the use of oil -based synthetic dyes in food and drinks.

According to Curtis, the two previous collaborations were also the most sold Whopper innovations in Burger King, based on the number sold.

“What we have found in the promotion of the Addams family specifically is that, because we have dug property, traffic was quite stable, but sales were up,” he said, attributing sales growth to families, who have a higher average check than a solo restaurant or a couple.

The elevator of sales expected from the menu “How to Train Your Dragon” arrives at a crucial moment for Burger King.

During its last quarter, the return of the company tripped. Shop sales of the same doors of the chain have slipped 1.1%, reflecting a crisis at the industry level while fears of the economy and bad weather kept the guests at home.

But Curtis is convinced that Burger King is on the right track, pointing to the relative outperformance of the chain compared to its two largest competitors: McDonald's and Wendy's.

“I know they rush, and sometimes, frankly, copying some of the things we do, which, you know, plagiarism is the most sincere form of flattery,” he said. “When we see them doing this, it gives us more conviction to stay on the right track.”

When the live version of “How to Train Your Dragon” will be released in theaters on June 13, it should be one of the big blockbusters of the summer. After all, the animated trilogy reported more than $ 1.6 billion worldwide.

Burger King has similar expectations for its menu.

The past success of the menu elements of the Spider-Ver and Addams family pushed Burger King to “considerably” its forecasts for the menu “How to train your dragon”, according to Curtis. And Burger King also plans to modify its advertising strategy, which could considerably increase demand for grilled Whoppers with flames.

“In the past, we will simply associate ourselves with the property of the film, but we would not necessarily announce the association – you would see it and hear about it on social networks,” said Curtis.

The promotion is supposed to take place in early July, but in case Burger King burn its supply in just three weeks, the chain is ready to monitor the shorts of the menu. This is a lesson he learned during his Spider-Verse promotion, when she had to launch a tracker on her website to help customers find the coveted Whopper.

By learning from each experience, Burger King plans to dive deeper into franchise partnerships, betting that additional effort will lead to long -term loyalty for the brand.

“We do some more than we have done in the past,” said Curtis. “We have one towards the end of the year which we pass very, very excited … and we are also aligned for next year. In each of them, we are going to go.”

Disclosure: Comcast has CNBC and Universal Studios, the producer and distributor of “how to train your dragon”.