

A story of "launch" disaster: fast-food style - icodemyownshit
http://andyswan.com/blog/2009/09/21/a-story-of-launch-disaster-fast-food-style/

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andyswan
I'm the original author of this. And just to clarify a few points:

1\. This really happened. 2\. It was done on purpose by the owner. 3\. They
did normally close one day per year for repaving/repairs...and Wendy's did
announce their grand opening well in advance.

Thanks,

Andy Swan

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davidw
Not the intended point, but it reminds me of the good side of living in Italy.
I just got back from lunch at a nice trattoria, where I had a plate of fusilli
with "speck" (like prosciutto), cream, and rucola (I think it's argula or
something like that in English) for less than 5 euros. There's a time and a
place for McDonalds, but every day at lunch is way too much.

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jlees
Rucola = arugula in the US, rocket in the UK. Mmm.

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louislouis
So if a competitor site is launching, shut down your site for the day and
redirect all traffic to their site in an attempt to flood their server?
Interesting tactic but I don't think it's gona work somehow.

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johnrob
Forget redirecting traffic - just put an invisible pixel on your site that
hits the competitor. Imagine if google did this... they could kill any site!

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JeremyChase
Yes; we should all DOS the competition. Brilliant plan.

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launic
The two things I would learn from this story are: 1) to be prepared for the
success. As someone said, be prepared for the time when all your ten thousand
customers tell their, maybe, thirty friends about how good is your service. 2)
Find always the good side of bad things. For example a competitor can simply
emphasize your strong points and (as you said here) increase the market as a
whole.

I guess this is why we like this story even if we do not really believe it.

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edw519
OP infers that McDonald's intended for Wendy's to fail on their first day.
Based upon my experience in foodservice (including 7 years with McDonald's), I
don't believe it. They never conducted business that way, and I doubt that
they do now.

Years of study have taught something counter-intuitive in the fast food
industry (especially in a small town where everybody knows everybody else):
the better Wendy's does, the better McDonald's does. With more choices
downtown, there will be more traffic.

The best food service organizations welcome others, not as competitors to
fight over a bigger piece of pie, but as "partners" to make the whole pie
bigger.

It's up to us to figure out how this lesson applies to our industry. There's
probably a symbiotic relationship out there for us to find as well.

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yummyfajitas
McD's is a franchise, so why can't this simply be the action of one rogue
franchise owner?

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edw519
It could be, but I still doubt it. McDonald's runs a very tight ship;
franchisees have little latitude to go "rogue". It's highly unlikely that a
franchisee could shut down one day without corporate approval. They have
traditionally welcomed others into their neighborhoods (while still
maintaining #1 position, of course).

[Little known unpublished McDonald's fact: Not sure if it's still true, but at
one time they honored all competitors coupons. Yes, they'd give you a free Big
Mac with a free Whopper coupon.]

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joezydeco
They may have kept the restaurant open and just closed the drive-thru lane.
That's pretty much killing your lunch business, but the store is still
effectively "open".

[And yeah the coupon thing is still there. I once spent half an hour arguing
with a woman who knew about this fact and was trying to convince me a free
Strawberry Shake was equivalent to a free Slurpee coupon she was holding. Had
to say no to that one.]

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andyswan
You may be right there....I don't know if you could park a block away and walk
into the McD's that day, but I do know no one would lol :)

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vdoma
I don't know - it could backfire as well. Sometimes long lines in a new place
could give the impression that place is better, especially for people not in
line - people just driving through downtown. So, it might be an experiment
worth trying, but by no means guarantees success.

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taitems
That would only apply to a highly competitive market. In this case, you have
one store with a long history of customer satisfaction.

