The following was taken from a Wall Street Journal article: Burger King intends

Question

The following was taken from a Wall Street Journal article:

Burger King intends to bring smiles to the faces of millions of parents and children this holiday season with its ‘Toy Story’ promotion. But it has some of them up in arms because local restaurants are running out of the popular toys. Lynn Cullen says her four-year-old son Sam, egged on by a barrage of television ads that began late last month, had been begging for a trip to Burger King so he could get a plastic Buzz Lightyear or Woody the sheriff doll, both characters from the Walt Disney Co. movie.

But after Sam got his Burger King Kids Meal, he let out a howl of protest. Instead of a ‘Toy Story’ character, he found Esmeralda – a leftover doll from a promotion tied to ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame,’ a far less popular Disney film.

‘There were no apologies, no voucher, they just said, “We don’t have ’em,” Ms. Cullen complains. Furthermore, when she went to a second Burger King, only to learn that it had also run out of the popular freebies, Ms. Cullen was offered a bigger, more elaborate ‘Toy Story’ doll for $2.69. ‘It’s bait and switch,’ Ms. Cullen contends. ‘It’s toying with little kids in the most cynical way.’

The ‘Toy Story’ restaurant campaign is part of one of the biggest video promotions to date from two marketers with vast experience staging such events. Every Kids Meal sold every day of the year comes with a giveaway, a program that has been in place for about six years and has helped Grand Metropolitan PLC’s Burger King increase its market share. Nearly all of Burger King’s 7,000 U.S. stores are participating in the ‘Toy Story’ promotion.

For its part, Disney has long used restaurant tie-ins to push its animated movies. The entertainment concern and a host of marketing partners, in addition to Burger King, are together spending about $150 million to promote ‘Toy Story’ on video.

Nevertheless, meeting consumer demand still remains a conundrum for the giants. That is partly because individual Burger King restaurant owners make their tricky forecasts six months before such promotions begin. ‘It’s asking to pull out a crystal ball and predict exactly what consumer demand is going to be,’ says Richard Taylor, Burger King’s director of youth and family marketing. ‘This is simply a case of consumer demand outstripping supply.’ The long lead times are necessary because the toys are produced overseas to take advantage of lower costs.

‘We don’t want to advertise things to consumers and have them come in and be disappointed,’ Mr. Taylor says. He adds that the promotion still has a month to go.

Although Burger King managers in Houston and Atlanta say the freebies are running out there, too, Mr. Taylor says he isn’t worried about making matters worse by boosting the ads for the giveaways. ‘There might be a restaurant here or there that has run out of the prizes,’ he says. But Burger King, which ordered nearly 50 million of the small plastic dolls, is ‘nowhere near running out of toys on a national level.’

Question: Please provide AT LEAST TWO recommendations to improve this situation and explain why your recommendations would work. (Please note that your suggestions would better not involve a large amount of investment as the toys given away with the kid’s meal do not generate any revenue directly.)

Explanation / Answer

Here it says that overall Burger King, which ordered nearly 50 million of the small plastic dolls, is ‘nowhere near running out of toys on a national level.’

1. So they need to re distribute the toys to the outlets which have seen toys running out of stock.

2. A check needs to done which outlets have a maximum footfall of kids so that the toys could be arranged in those locations in that proportion.

3. Although here it says that suggestions should not involve a large amount of investment as the toys given away with the kid’s meal do not generate any revenue directly, but they indirectly boost the revenue, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to order more of these toys, in case a lot of them are left over, they could be sold in some other market.

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