The Eternal Rival: Will you go to a McDonald’s or Burger King in Ankara?

Q. When you think of International Burger Franchisee, what do you have in your mind?
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There is no doubt that ‘McDonald’s’ and ‘Burger King’ will be the first two brands that pop up in your mind among others. However, there is a small trick in this burger rivieras. The average profit that McDonald’s made last year was $2.4 million and Burger King earned $1.2 million. In turn, looking at the scale of revenue that both Burger Franchisees obtained shows that Burger King is not actual rival to McDonald’s such as Coca-cola and Pepsi.  This is one of marketing strategies that Burger King is utilizing in order to manipulate customers perception of top 2 Burger Franchisees. Now Let’s move on to the histories of both McDonald’s and Burger King.

The First Restaurant of McDonald’s was first established in Illinois, USA in April 1955 by Ray Kroc. It is currently closed and was opened for a while as a museum. However, before the opening of first McDonald’s store by Ray Kroc, there were two founders of McDonald’s: Richard James McDonald and Maurice James McDonald.  As you can see from their last name, the brand name of McDonald’s was created from that brothers.In the beginning of McDonald’s, they did not plan to expand their burger house just like today. Their store was focused on drive-through. At that time, people were used to the burger store that women wearing with rollers and serving to burgers to the customers. But, for the people who needed to take burgers in a short time like launch time were not able to order burgers. This inspired McDonald’s brothers to change the marketing strategy from traditional style to modern style of burger house. They did not hired part time workers and made customers to order their own foods which can be called as specialization and division of cooking burgers. It was a huge sensation to a number of people since the time for preparing burgers was reduced in half.

While McDonald Brothers were having success in their towns, Ray Kroc was working as a blender salesman.  The fact that McDonald brothers were purchasing  a lot of blenders interested Ray to pay attention to Franchisee of this burger store.  So, they both agreed to run McDonald’s with the investment from Ray Kroc. But, the motto and directional nature of burger business of both founders were heading to different directions. McDonald brothers did not satisfy with the business plan that Ray Kroc had in his mind which was to enlarge McDonald’s as a global brand. Therefore, later on Ray Kroc bought all of shares of McDonald’s with high price and became a major stockholder of its business.

By the way, do you know how McDonald’s expanded their business rapidly in a short time?
The answer comes from a rental fee. The original franchisees at that time permitted to open a new store only for those who already had lands and got cheap price for the name of franchisee. But, this was a significant burden to people who did not have their own lands. In contrast, McDonald’s had different skills. They firstly bought lands and asked franchisee stores to pay fees of Franchisee and rental fee for a month like a monthly installment plan. This was a secret of McDonald’s.

​The Name of Burger King is not the original name. Actually, the original name of Burger King was Insta-Burger King. It was opened in Miami in 1953 by Keith J. Kramer and his wife’s uncle whose name is Matthew Burns. As similar to McDonald’s, the Insta burger king was one of famous burger stores in the region of Jacksonville.On the other side of Burger King history, James McLamore and David R. Edgerton were colleges of Cornell University School of Hotel Administration . One day they had a chance to visit McDonald’s and determined to initiate the franchisee business, and it was a such a nice timing for them to take over Insta-burger king. Since Insta Burger King was having troubles in terms of management, they had sell their store. So, after a management buyout James and David Sixty opened a first Burger King at 3090 N.W. 36th Street in Miami.

Later on, Pillsbury company which is bread making firm purchases Burger King so that the history of McLamore and Dabid R. Edgerton’s Burger Kings finally concluded at this moment.  Currently, Pillsbury corp is exercising active marketing strategy in order to catch up the market share of McDonald’s all over the world.    

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I know you have already experienced these both burgers from Burger King and McDonald’s. But, for those who want to know details of both burgers I wrote a brief ingredients of its.

Burger Kings’s Whopper is a ¼ lb of savory flame-grilled beef topped with juicy tomatoes, fresh lettuce, creamy mayonnaise, ketchup, crunchy pickles, and sliced white onions on a soft sesame seed bun. Served with a small side of piping hot, thick cut French Fries or golden Onion Rings and a small fountain drink of your choice to make it a meal.

McDonald’s Big Mac is composed of two sear-sizzled 100% pure beef patties and Big Mac sauce, sandwiched between a sesame seed bun. American cheese, shredded lettuce, onions and pickles top it off.
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I visited a Burger King and Mcdonald’s which are both located in Çankaya/Ankara. To be honest, the taste of whopper was better than Big Mac of McDonald’s. ( It is purely based on my humble tongue, so, never judge both burger before you taste it. !! I am just delivering the taste of my experience !!)
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​Whopper is bigger than Big Mac in terms of size of it and the meat inside the bread was well burned since I could feel the smell of meat from the grills. But, I will give hand to McDonald besides the burger. The fried potatoesfrom Burger King was not that crispy compared to McDonald’s. When we eat a burger from any place, for me fried potato is one of biggest factors that I decide evaluate the menu. Because Burger !!!! cannot Never!!! ever!!!! separated with fried potatoes ( I am fried potato holic)

​There are many Burger King and McDonald’s in Ankara. But, I thought it would quite helpful for us to have our own maps which is only consists of Both Burger Franchisees. From that thought, I made a map that shows all the Burger King and McDonald’s in Ankara. I hope this can help you with finding burger houses near your sweet home! ​
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​The map was created based on ‘Google My Map‘. It is an application that google provides us to make our own maps in certain areas. So, basically if you need a map that has places only for you then you can create it through this service Google.

​References and more information:
https://www.thebalance.com/history-of-burger-king-1350968
https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-us/our-history.html
https://www.google.com/maps/d/home
http://www.bk.com/menu
​https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/full-menu.html

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​Hyun Seok Lee,
Bilkent University Student
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