As a friend and I were driving in the city of Pune after a morning meeting last Saturday, we were wondering if we could have our lunch at The Great Punjab or at Darios. Being not in a mood to sit and dine in a fine dining restaurant, we thought we could grab some fast food on the go. My friend instantaneously became nostalgic as we were rummaging through more options and he suggested that we go to Pune's Burger King. He seems to have enjoyed the various kinds of burgers served at the Burger King in Koregaon Park in Pune. We parked our car and I walked in disbelief wondering where in Pune does one have the Burger King! It was a shack that housed the Burger King and it very much resembled the 'paratha' shops that adorn the roadsides of Tamil Nadu and Kerala! The outside space around the restaurant was full of parked motorcycles and cars. The entire place was filled with a crowd of very young people. Famished as both of us were I thought we may just go straight to order for the burgers, sit at a table and start eating. But when we entered the shack, I could see a serpentine queue of youngsters waiting patiently to register their orders at the solitary cash till. We stood in the queue and placed our orders, all of which - burgers, soft drinks and fries including, totalled to a value of Indian Rupees two hundred and eighty only. Though the cashier printed a bill, he wrote my friend's name on it and retained it.
Our orders were not delivered for a good half an hour (I am not exaggerating, honestly!). At a certain point in time while waiting for the burgers to arrive, I thought that our orders were perhaps forgotten and they were serving those that came after us. It was not so. We were waiting for the delivery of our burgers and I could see just suppliers going around with plates of burgers and fries calling out names of customers seeking their acknowledgement shown by the raising of their hands, to find out where they were sitting so that the burgers could be served. As time was passing by fast, all the names called out by the suppliers sounded to me very much like my friend's name only. Finally our burgers arrived. I was just taken aback to see the sheer large size of the burgers served that were almost twice the size of McDonald's burgers, if not larger! All these king sized burgers were only for unit prices of Rs 70, Rs 50 and thereabouts! The painted price-list hung up near the store signage was a few years old and there were only additions of items to it but there were no changes in prices made at all. That means the prices have remained without an increase for a few years now! The very thought of such constant steadily behaving prices was incredible though, I could understand the true service motive behind running the restaurant and one could easily understand every reason of its success among the youth! Sinking my teeth into the burger I was enjoying every bit of it simultaneously listening to my friend's account of his glorious student days in Pune and his visits to the Burger King.
I knew that it was a truly youthful, spirited Pune based outlet. As I looked up I saw the signboard and the 'King' after the 'Burger' was covered and in some more places erased, leaving it just as as "Burger .....", without the King. I remembered instantly the long drawn recent fight between the international Burger King and the Pune Burger King over the usage of the Trade Mark. Though the court ruled that it was infringement and passing off of trade mark, the owners contended that they started the fastfood outlet twenty years ago much before Burger King was registered in India! They complied with the verdict and masked the 'King'.
Business goes on as usual in the outlet perhaps more briskly than even before with the signage "Burger ....." everywhere in the premises! It's only good quality and quantity that matter to today's customers who know how to smartly hang around. The consumer connect is only with the product experienced in the emotionally enveloping conversations punctuated with oft erupting laughters in happiness among themselves and not clearly with the brand "Burger King". Pune's Burger ....." is all about the young consumers' emotional connect to the place. They seem to ask, "After all what's in a name?"!
Our orders were not delivered for a good half an hour (I am not exaggerating, honestly!). At a certain point in time while waiting for the burgers to arrive, I thought that our orders were perhaps forgotten and they were serving those that came after us. It was not so. We were waiting for the delivery of our burgers and I could see just suppliers going around with plates of burgers and fries calling out names of customers seeking their acknowledgement shown by the raising of their hands, to find out where they were sitting so that the burgers could be served. As time was passing by fast, all the names called out by the suppliers sounded to me very much like my friend's name only. Finally our burgers arrived. I was just taken aback to see the sheer large size of the burgers served that were almost twice the size of McDonald's burgers, if not larger! All these king sized burgers were only for unit prices of Rs 70, Rs 50 and thereabouts! The painted price-list hung up near the store signage was a few years old and there were only additions of items to it but there were no changes in prices made at all. That means the prices have remained without an increase for a few years now! The very thought of such constant steadily behaving prices was incredible though, I could understand the true service motive behind running the restaurant and one could easily understand every reason of its success among the youth! Sinking my teeth into the burger I was enjoying every bit of it simultaneously listening to my friend's account of his glorious student days in Pune and his visits to the Burger King.
I knew that it was a truly youthful, spirited Pune based outlet. As I looked up I saw the signboard and the 'King' after the 'Burger' was covered and in some more places erased, leaving it just as as "Burger .....", without the King. I remembered instantly the long drawn recent fight between the international Burger King and the Pune Burger King over the usage of the Trade Mark. Though the court ruled that it was infringement and passing off of trade mark, the owners contended that they started the fastfood outlet twenty years ago much before Burger King was registered in India! They complied with the verdict and masked the 'King'.
Business goes on as usual in the outlet perhaps more briskly than even before with the signage "Burger ....." everywhere in the premises! It's only good quality and quantity that matter to today's customers who know how to smartly hang around. The consumer connect is only with the product experienced in the emotionally enveloping conversations punctuated with oft erupting laughters in happiness among themselves and not clearly with the brand "Burger King". Pune's Burger ....." is all about the young consumers' emotional connect to the place. They seem to ask, "After all what's in a name?"!
- Dr. Gibson G. Vedamani
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