010461 Burger King Unlikely to Cut Burger Prices

Chicago - No. 2 U.S. hamburger maker Burger King Corp. is unlikely to use price cuts as a marketing ploy, and will instead focus on the attributes of its flagship Whopper sandwich, its new senior marketing executive said.

“I'm not typically a fan of deep discounting as a pricing strategy,” said Chris Clouser, who just assumed the post of executive vice president and chief marketing officer for the Miami-based company. “Deep discounting is not the long-term solution.”

Burger King's flame-broiled Whopper hamburger, which competes against McDonald's Corp.'s Big Mac, is preferred by customers in taste tests, Clouser said. Yet same-store sales, or those at restaurants open at least one year in the company's some 8300 U.S. restaurants, have this year declined.

Clouser, who made his remarks during a phone interview Monday during his first official day on the job, said he was unable to provide further details of his plans for the unit of London-based food and beverage conglomerate Diageo Plc.

Ron Paul, a principal with Chicago-based market research firm Technomic Inc. said he agrees that a return to the basics would be the best marketing solution for Burger King.

“The food is what counts, and the Whopper sandwich is the most important differentiator,” he said.

Clouser, 49, said he would begin by improving communication with the company's franchisees, who have been pushing to speed Burger King's planned separation from corporate parent Diageo. A scheduled IPO was delayed, and John Dasburg, the company's new chief executive, said recently that several other options to make Burger King independent were in review.

“I'm here to listen and learn,” Clouser said, during a break from a Burger King franchisee meeting in New York.

In the 1990s, Clouser worked as a marketing and human resources executive under Dasburg at Northwest Airlines Corp.

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