ORLANDO—Burger King has more than 17,000 restaurants around the world. “So imagine each of them is kind of like a small company” guided by three principles: getting the basics right, ensuring guest friendliness and using technology to help people engage with the brand, says Global CMO Fernando Machado.
“We put a lot of effort on remodeling restaurants and making sure that the restaurants have the latest design. We always study the type of guests who come to our restaurants and we try to offer a layout to accommodate them,” Machado adds.
In this interview with Beet.TV at the recent Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing conference, Machado talks about a company culture focused on design, good service and modern technology.
The “design bucket” includes being able to accommodate, say, families who need four seats or people who need a power outlet and WiFi to get some work done at a Burger King location. “Try to understand who is the guest of that particular location or the country so that we make sure we offer that experience,” Machado says.
Bucket #2, “guest friendliness,” covers seemingly simple concepts like getting someone’s order right and serving food while it’s still hot. “It’s basic stuff, but if you don’t get that right, the experience will not be great. It’s one of the biggest challenges we have to make sure that our culture permeates to the restaurant.”
Rounding out Burger King’s trio of priorities is using technology to change the way that people interact with the brand. “I’m not even talking about advertising or social media, I’m talking about at the restaurant,” Machado says, citing amenities like self-ordering kiosks, mobile ordering/payment systems and CRM. “The basic things that we have to do at the restaurant because today technology is empowering us to do that.”
Asked about his participation with the ANA’s CMO Council in conjunction with the Cannes Lions, Machado calls it a “huge opportunity and responsibility. I want to learn and I also want to contribute.”
Noting that things are “just getting started” with the CMO Council as people continue to get to know each other and decide what to pursue, he shares his hopes for the next gathering in June of 2019 at Cannes. “My expectation for Cannes would be to have even more clarity in each of the work streams, in each of the pillars that we have as part of this initiative” along with having better connections with Council members “because I think that’s also part of the benefit of having a council is the networking.”
This segment is from CMO Growth Council presented by the ANA and Cannes Lions. Beet.TV coverage is sponsored by the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. Please find more videos from the series here.
