{"id":391628,"date":"2010-03-04T10:09:48","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T15:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.disinfo.com\/?p=23951"},"modified":"2010-03-04T10:09:48","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T15:09:48","slug":"mapping-the-american-burger-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/391628","title":{"rendered":"Mapping The American Burger Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

The excellent WeatherSealed<\/a> by Stephen Von Worley graphically illustrates the battle for dominance in the American fast food stakes:<\/p>\n

\n

Imagine, if you will,\u00a0the burger force<\/em> \u2013 a field of energy that radiates from\u00a0every freshly-cooked patty, earth-penetrating and inverse-squared<\/a> with distance, compelling the hungry carnivore to seek out and devour the well-done ground beef at the source.<\/p>\n

Now, wrap that concept in a Star Wars<\/a> motif \u2013 set in the present day, with the second-tier burger chains as the rebels \u2013 each, by themselves, without mutual aid,\u00a0battling the 12,000-plus restaurant McEmpire<\/a>.\u00a0 The situation is most dire, for the upstarts control but a few significant islands of territory amid the overwhelming and darkly-rendered influence of the McForce:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Territory controlled by the eight largest U.S. burger chains.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In this and the following graphic, each individual restaurant location has equal power.\u00a0 The entity that controls<\/em> each point casts the most aggregate burger force upon it, as calculated by the inverse-square law<\/a> \u2013 kind of like a chart outlining the gravitational wells<\/a> of galactic star clusters, but in an alternate, fast food universe.<\/p>\n

By far, the largest pocket of resistance is Sonic Drive-In\u2019s<\/a> south-central stronghold: more than 900 restaurants packed into the state of Texas alone.\u00a0 Sheer density is the key to victory!<\/p>\n

The rebels already have the numbers \u2013 over 24,000 locations in total \u2013 but they\u2019ve divided and conquered themselves<\/em> by strict adherence to the peacetime principles of brand identity and corporate structure.\u00a0 This is war<\/a>, and for the sake of self-preservation, all must be sacrificed!\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

[continues at WeatherSealed<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\n

Possibly Related Posts:<\/h3>\n