OAKVILLE, Ontario & OAK BROOK, Ill. -- It's Oakville vs. Oak Brook, and the feathers are flying. Burger King is bringing back its 15-cent chicken nugget promotion, battling it out with McDonald's over the price of one of the most popular fast-food menu items, reported Bloomberg.
Starting January 12, Burger King began selling 10 chicken nuggets for $1.49, about half the regular price of $2.99, according to the news agency, citing a statement from the chain, owned by Oakville, Ontario-based Restaurant Brands International Inc., which also owns the Tim Hortons doughnut and coffee chain. Burger King ran the same promotion in October for about a month until supplies waned.
"When we first offered our guests this value back in October, they went crazy for it. We are bringing it back again in January during a time when people are watching their wallets after all that holiday shopping," Eric Hirschhorn, Burger King's chief marketing officer for North America, said in a press statement announcing the promotion.
McDonald's sells 50 Chicken McNuggets for $9.99, or 20 cents per nugget.
"They're competing aggressively with McDonald's, and they're doing it as a very low price to draw people in," Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Chicago-based research firm Technomic Inc., told Bloomberg. "The goal is to steal share from the other burger brands around them."
McDonald's 50-piece nugget promotion is a local option for franchisees, who can determine their own timing on the deal, Lisa McComb, a spokesperson for the Oakbrook, Ill.-based chain, told Bloomberg. The restaurants that will be offering the deal will mostly likely do so as a Super Bowl promotion, she said.
The fast-food industry is relying more heavily on discounts to drive foot traffic as consumers flock to fast-casual restaurants like Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. The risk of cutting prices to drive sales is that customers will only buy the discounted items and abandon the chain once prices go up.
"They're buying that moment's traffic," Malcolm Knapp, a restaurant-industry consultant, told the news agency. "They're not building loyal customers who will come back for other things."
Burger King's previous chicken nugget promotion helped the company post a 3.6% gain in same-store sales in the U.S. and Canada for the third quarter. McDonald's had a 3.3% drop in U.S. sales during the same period, said the report.
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