Earlier this week, Burger King introduced the “Satisfries”, which is meant to be a healthier alternative to their regular fries. While this new product was welcomed by customers and proved to be an effective positioning strategy, the marketing of the fries was a failure.

Burger King decided to reposition the competition by creating the perception that their fries are healthier than the fries at any of their competitors. The marketing team then decided to “rebrand” the company temporarily by changing its name to Fries King. A new logo was introduced online, and many locations even replaced the physical logo with the Fries King name. This was clearly a bold move to “get in the mind of the consumer”, as explained by Ries and Trout. However, this strategy quickly backfired as consumers were confused and assumed the change was permanent. The company also encouraged Twitter followers to use the hashtag #WTFF (What the French Fry), unaware that this hashtag was already used to comment on angry or outrageous stories. This lack of internet research proved to be costly for the company. To prevent this confusion from occurring, Burger King should have released television ads and gained consumer awareness before making an enormous rebranding stunt. Ultimately, the decision to reposition was excellent, but the execution was not.

Check out this video of a confused drive-thru consumer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERR66d4Xomc

Here are some Twitter users expressing their anger and confusion:

Burger King confirms changing it's name to Fries King. Killing myself.

— Doriano Magliano (@DorianoMagliano) October 3, 2013

Wait, Burger King is now FriesKing? Fire the marketing guy.

— Burnsy (@MinnesotaBurns) October 3, 2013

Additional information found here:

http://business.time.com/2013/10/02/the-web-hates-burger-kings-fake-name-change/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/caroltice/2013/09/26/what-burger-king-got-wrong-with-low-fat-french-fry/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/10/02/burger-king-fries-king/2909423/

As if the recent takeover negotiations wasn’t enough drama, Blackberry is now facing a lawsuit from investors accusing the company of presenting misleading statements and inflating share prices. Blackberry CEO Thorsten Heins claimed in a press release that the company was recovering its market share, when in fact, layoffs were required and millions of dollars were lost. The lawsuit also claims that incorrect information was presented to the SEC regarding Blackberry’s stock. This problem can be summarized to a single department: financial accounting. Accounting fraud clearly occurred in the form of improper disclosure, leading to an overvaluation of the company and an incorrect forecast.

Why was the accounting fraud committed? In this case, there was undoubtedly a sense of situational pressure. There were issues in operations and revenues were decreasing for a long time, but the CEO must have been unprepared to reveal this information. Mr. Heins recognized that disclosing this information would have resulted in an immediate drop in share price. He perceived the opportunity to mislead investors for the time being and resolve these issues later. Regardless of the opportunity or the amount of pressure the company faces, fraud is still illegal and it will be interesting to see how this legal case progresses.

Links to the articles found here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-04/blackberry-faces-investor-s-securities-lawsuit-in-n-y-.html

http://www.firstpost.com/business/blackberry-accused-of-inflating-shares-with-false-claims-in-class-action-suit-1154613.html

Last week, HTC reported the company’s first ever quarterly loss: an astounding NT$2.97 billion. The long-time smartphone manufacturer’s market share also dropped to 2.8%, being overshadowed by competitors such as Apple and Samsung. The following quarter is expected to be even tougher as HTC has no innovative products being released until early 2014.

For HTC to be successful again, the company must address various issues on its business model canvas. Clearly, there are supply chain issues that must be resolved. This was made evident when the flagship smartphone, HTC One, was delayed and released alongside the successful Samsung Galaxy S4. There have also been internal issues with design and engineering, as many complaints have surfaced regarding the One’s hardware and software. The company’s failure to fulfill its value proposition, which is to use innovation and leading technology to help solve everyday problems for consumers, resulted in a drop in profits and shares. The company’s CEO, Cher Wang, also admitted that there was a problem of communication with consumers, which falls under ‘Customer Relationships’. HTC must improve its marketing to attract new customers as well as keep current customers informed of its operations. If HTC does not improve after the quarterly loss, this could very well be the beginning of the company’s downfall.

An example of the many videos online discussing issues with the latest phone:

More information found here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-06/htc-chairwoman-says-fourth-quarter-will-be-biggest-challenge-.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/04/us-htc-earnings-idUSBRE99300L20131004

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/htc-one-problems/