The battle over breakfast is heating up with this week’s launch of McDonald’s Buttermilk Biscuit. McDonald’s is calling its new breakfast sandwich the “most significant breakfast menu launch” since the McGriddles debuted in 2003.
And the stakes are high. According to a 2010 report by the Mintel Research Group, breakfast represented nearly 60% of the restaurant industry’s traffic growth over the past five years. While in Canada, hot breakfast sandwiches are the second most popular morning menu item behind coffee.
Tim Horton’s first introduced a hot morning sandwich on a baked biscuit or bagel in 2006. Then in January 2010 the chain launched a breakfast sandwich on an English muffin to compete with the McDonald’s Egg McMuffin.
Linda Strachan, industry analyst at the NPD Group, said quick-service restaurants have been driving sales at breakfast by responding to consumer interest in convenience, taste and value. “On any given day, 14% of Canadians over the age of 13 buy their breakfast or a morning snack from a restaurant,” she said.
Hope Bagozzi, director of national marketing for McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada, said the Buttermilk Biscuit has sold in the U.S. for the past couple of years and the product went through a successful trial in Ottawa in December. “We did a full advertising sales test and tried to replicate the media approach that we would do with a national launch,” she said. “The results were stellar and gave us confidence that Canadians were enjoying our Buttermilk Biscuits and they would be a hit here.”
As part of the marketing plan, McDonald’s ran a two-day promotion giving away the free breakfast sandwiches in Ottawa, and plans to do a similar national promotion this month.
A national multimedia campaign launched Jan. 31 and includes television, radio, digital and outdoor.
“The advertising was really trying to celebrate the fact that these biscuits are an achievement or the pinnacle in terms of a baking success,” she said. “Our whole campaign is about celebrating that notion of quality fresh baked perfection.”
The TV ad is designed to look a bit like a Super Bowl victory as staffers congratulate each other and throw a bag of flour over the baker.
