On July 12, McDonald’s announced it was cancelling its Hot ‘n Spicy McChicken sandwich. "It’s not that it didn’t do well. It just didn’t do well enough," according to McDonald’s spokesperson Bill Whitman (see Chicago Tribune article). After 18 months of development, the product was pulled after just 6 months on the market.
On July 13, Wendy’s announced it was going to test market a new fiery, red-hot chicken sandwich even hotter than its Spicy Chicken sandwich – which it has been selling for decade. "We have defended our Spicy Chicken successfully against competitive intrusion…now we see an opportunity to build on this effort…giving our customers additional options," said Wendy’s Chief Marketing Officer Ian Rowden (see article here).
Could it be that McDonald’s customers just don’t like spicy sandwiches? Unlikely in the notoriously fickle fast food marektplace. Practically every competitor (except McDonald’s) has a spicy product line today as the sales of chili peppers has doubled in just the last 4 years. What’s at play here is good old Lock-in, once again. We’d like to think that as the #1 fast food company McDonald’s would listen to customers and bring the very best talent to rolling out a product widely desired. But, more likely, all new products in McDonald’s are vetted over and over until the challenge becomes distinguishing it from what is already on the menu!
The more adaptable Wendy’s has demonstrated its ability to one-up McDonald’s for years. Wendy’s brought us fast food chili, the baked potato with fixins’ bar, the fast-food salad bar, and Frosty’s. By using disruptions to find new products, Wendy’s keeps the edge over McDonald’s in practically all categories but absolute size.
Wendy’s keeps growing its stores and customers, while McDonald’s remains almost flat on both counts. By overcoming Lock-in, Wendy’s keeps doing what McDonald’s can’t – and that’s where Wendy’s creates competitive value.