THE BATTLE FOR LANDMARK

"You've got to see what's happening at Landmark,"My boss, Abelle Carlos told me one day in 1988 .



Landmark is a mall in Makati which had just opened its doors to the public that year, and it would have been insignificant except for the fact that this was the first time that the two competing burger brands,Jollibee and McDonald's, were located together in one foodcourt.



Makati,being predominantly a Class AB market was supposedly McDonald's territory. McD claimed that its stores in the area had bigger sales than our stores but no one had evidence that this was true.

This was going to be the litmus test of McDonald's boast.



Jollibee's and McD's stores were just at opposite ends of each other. McDonald's had a slightly larger area because it had its own exclusive dining area which Jollibee didn't have. Just by visually estimating the the size of the crowds at the counters or by checking the number of cups,or styro packs that would be found in the common dining area, one could get a feel of who was selling more.



Since the pride of the brand was at stake here, the battle for Landmark became a no holds barred affair.



From Day 1 both brands resorted to giving out leaflets to passing customers hoping to entice them to their side. It was a sight to behold! For every crew Jollibee had, there was a McD counterpart handing out leaflets.



When simple leafletting didn't do the trick, both brands resorted to a price and promotions war.

The leaflets were now stamped with FREE items that were to be given to customers for a specific food purchase. Each tried to outdo the other in giving away something, just to be able to attract customers. And the promos changed from day to day depending on what the competition did.

For example, if McDonald's offered a free sundae cone for every P 50 purchase, Jollibee would come out with a free Fries and Coke offering.

Since it was just the two brands going all out in giving away free food, naturally customers gravitated to either one of the two, leaving the other food court brands with the scraps. Eventually, though these also joined in the fray and started offering their own free items. It came to a point that if you wanted to get free meals all you needed to do was bring a friend along to Landmark,buy the minimum purchase and your friend would get everything else for free!

So who won after the battle for Landmark.

Of course, both sides claimed victory although our contact in the Landmark administration who used to work with Jollibee revealed that Jollibee's sales were slightly better than our rival.

The after effect of all this though was that both stores lost money during the initial skirmishes until they stopped their promos. It was the customers who won in the end.

A couple of years later, I was told that when Jollibee and McDonald's opened side by side in another Mall (Manuela now Starmall at Crossing,) the McDonald's sub-franchisee spoke with S' Tommy King, the Jollibee Manuela franchisee, and both agreed not to repeat what happened during the Battle for Landmark!

IT'S ABOUT TAKING GOOD CARE OF PEOPLE...S_ _ _ _D!

I think that one of the reasons for Jollibee's tremendous growth and success during the '80's was that it was able to attract good talent and keep them.



During its expansion binge from 1986 to the early '90's there was always an opening for store managers and since there weren't many ready talents from the ranks of the crews, Jollibee had to resort to pirating from other fastfood chains. By then, it already had the reputation for giving higher than industry salaries and benefits. It was also known as an employer that took good care of its people.



From KFC alone,there were so many of us who transferred to JFC in 1985 to 87. There were the likes of: Jimmy Ramos,Connie Mendoza,Leonie Soriano (they were among the first to migrate to Jollibee.) Then came Jimmy Enriquez (one of the prize catches from KFC,)Raffy Selga, Meann San Juan, Livia Pinggoy,Mimi Fernandez,Bambi Bejo,Iyoh Villamayor,Macy Ang,Malou Vidal,Louie Madlangbayan, Susan Almazan,Carmen Reyes and myself.



Then sometime in 1987,nine managers from McDonald's joined the ranks of Jollibee. Those whom I recall were: Fermin Fajardo, Rafael Recio, Tess Valdepenas,Gildy Abrigo, and Vina Evangelista.



Later on, managers from Pizza Hut, Shakey's and Wendy's would turn up at the recruitment office of Jollibee,all wanting to be part of the number one fastfood chain in the country.



Jollibee benefitted a lot from this infusion of "fresh blood" even if it came from rival chains. Each of the brands had their peculiar strengths from which Jollibee learned.



For example, it couldn't be denied that McD's strength lay in its strong operating systems. The ex-McD's shared their ideas on how to further improve Jollibee's production and service systems. In fact, a lot of the ideas we implemented in our Managing Service and Managing Production projects originated from a study of McDonald's operations.



When it came to people handling though, ex-KFC managers had an edge. At KFC,they had to handle tough,hard-headed union regulars. So when they transferred to Jollibee,which was also unionized but under a moderate union, the labor problems they had to face were relatively"easy to handle."

The other brands' losses became Jollibee's gains. Many of the ex- KFC people rose to occupy key positions in the Jollibee organization. For instance, Iyoh Villamayor,who became the Regional Business Unit head of Jollibee Metro- Manila is now spearheading Jollibee USA's expansion in the East Coast. Jimmy Enriquez is now Operations Director of Chowking,Jollibee's sister brand. Others became Area Managers or Group Managers of Franchise stores.

Many of these have also stayed with Jollibee for a long time (more than twenty years) which says a lot of how Jollibee has really taken good care of its key talents.

IT'S JOLLIBEE GOOD! SCORING A MARKETING COUP

(The end tag of the "It's Jollibee Good! TV Commercial)

It will probably be remembered as the TV commercial that launched the career of actress Carmina Villaroel. But for those of us who were present at that sales rally in June,1988, it was a marketing coup of sorts against our rival McDonald's.

During the latter part of the '80's,the rivalry between Jollibee and McDonald's was heating up,with both sides claiming supremacy over the Philippine fastfood market. By 1988,we had more than 30 stores while McD had probably less than 20.

But they,through spokesperson Greg Yang, always boasted of having higher sales per store. Their argument was if we matched them store by store they would come out on top.

Bobby Sumulong, our Marketing VP then, had a ready answer to that argument. He said that if you computed sales on the basis of floor area, our Jollibee stores, which were usually smaller than McD's behemoths, would definitely be generating more sales per square meter.

One arena where the Battle of the Burgers was closely fought was in Marketing. For instance, when McDonald's hired Martin Nievera to do a commercial, Jollibee countered with a TVC featuring Martin's close friend,Gary Valenciano, in what we call the "Gotta Bite" commercial.

Whenever McD had a novelty promo using their mascots,we came up with our own featuring all 8 mascots. When they saw that we were making brisk sales with Jollibee Spaghetti,they retaliated with their own McSpaghetti,which we found out was only served here in the Philippines.

McDonald's had an advantage when it came to launching TV commercials because they could just easily use any canned material from the USA. They also didn't have to figure out what campaign would work because any marketing effort would most likely have been tested somewhere else in the world.

At about this time,they had a very catchy slogan: "Good Times! Great Taste! McDonald's" which, besides being easy to remember and recall, was a direct attack on a strength we at Jollibee claimed:i.e., we had better tasting products than they had.

We had capitalized on this by highlighting that McD's taste was bland and not suited to the Filipino palate. For several years, we had used the tag line "Jollibee...Langhap Sarap" with great success.

Our advertising agency, Basic Foot,Cone & Belding (Basic FCB) thought it was high time we became more aggressive in the fight for our customers top of mind. They came out with, not one... but two,TV thematic ad concepts which revolved around the tagline:"All the good things you hunger for..IT'S JOLLIBEE GOOD!"

The accompanying jingle was easy to remember and memorize, such that even after 20 years I can still sing it :

If you long for something good
It stays in your mind
If you want it so much
You crave deep inside
And when you get it
It's Jollibee good
When you get it
It's Jollibee good
All the good things you hunger for
It's Jollibee good!

In a subtle way,we had counter attacked McD's "Good Times! Great Taste!" and come up with a catchy line of our own;"It's Jollibee Good!"

Needless to say, when the commercials were aired on TV and the supporting media blitzes were launched, we left McD eating our dust, so to speak.

THE HUMBLE BEE THAT IS TONY TAN

"Sir Tony! Could we have a picture with you?"

Our Franchisees' Convention program had just finished but Chowking franchisees,Managing directors and even Chowking officers stayed behind asking to have their picture taken with S' Tony Tancaktiong, Jollibee's founder and Chairman.

Several feet away,other franchisees were having their photo taken with singer-entertainer Ogie Alcasid,who was our guest speaker. Eventually,this group thinned out when Ogie left the session hall but the cluster of people surrounding S' Tony didn't. They wanted to have their picture with Mr. Jollibee himself, and S' Tony,ever the kind person he is, obliged.

Since it had been quite a while since I had my own picture taken with TTC, I snuck up beside him when I had the chance, and my wife, Jaja, took one of us for posterity.

Anyone who has read about Jollibee's success and Tony Tan's ever growing dynasty of food chains can have the impression that he is probably unreachable,as other so-called taipans seem to be.

But S' Tony is none of that.

For me, he is an example of a person who knows where he came from,and who has not been spoiled by success. I admire him for his humble when in fact he owns bragging rights for having built a Filipino brand.

One of Jollibee's core values is "Humility to Listen and Learn." There is no better embodiment of this than S' Tony himself.

It's interesting to note that "Humility" was not listed among Jollibee's core values when in 1996, Jollibee's top management went through a review and re-defining of its core mission and values. It was one of the Tan brothers, William Tanuntiong, who insisted that "Humility" be included.

He cited an example from his own Real Estate division,where some of his people chided one of their colleagues for being arrogant. "That behavior does not belong here," they had told the erring manager,"that belongs to McDo."(referring to McDonald's)

Then his clinching argument...he said that in the first place S' Tony, the President, was modelled humility by his own behavior.

Nobody questioned that.

In fact, when I conducted the series of orientation sessions on The Jollibee Way (a Jollibee corporate culture workshop,)whenever we talked about the value of humility,someone always had a story to tell about S' Tony's humble ways.

A favorite of mine came from one of the Area Managers,Rachel Bracamonte. She told the story of how she, during one of our Franchisees conventions,had lost one of her earrings somewhere at the lobby of the hotel where we held the event. A search ensued,and she was surprised to see S' Tony on his knees helping out in looking for the missing earrings!

Others would tell of how S' Tony,when he was at a Jollibee store, would pick up litter and throw this himself into the trash bin. He also did not expect preferential treatment when he visited Jollibee stores,always queueing up with customers at the counter lines when he could very well have been served at the tables.

He did not pull rank as President when it came to management decisions. I saw this myself when I had the opportunity to sit in at Mancom sessions in 1996,when my boss, Atty. Buddy Demaisip, would be absent. When he saw merit in a VP's position he acknowledged it and was willing to change his own.

During a recent Leadership learning session here at Jollibee where he was the featured speaker,he somehow explained the reason for the humility he was so known for. He said that he believed that he did not know everything and that he can always learn from someone else.

I can't help but recall one of the beatitudes which goes: "Blessed are the meek for they shall possess the land."

It's no wonder that S' Tony's Jollibee dynasty has now expanded beyond Philippine soil to the Asia Pacific region and to the USA.

WILLIAM TAN'S EXTRA CHALLENGE!

(Cover of the Franchising brochure I made for the Taiwan exhibit)

I believe that one of the ways that Tans brought out the best in their people is that they gave them challenging tasks, and recognized a good job when they saw it.

I experienced this first hand when I was given an assignment by then head of International Operations S' William Tan Untiong (WTU, as he was more popularly known.)

There was to be an expo of fastfoods and restaurants in Taiwan and he wanted Jollibee to be represented there. Jollibee had just opened its first store there in 1987 and he thought that by making the brand visible, we would have some prospective franchisees that would help grow the chain there.

It was Jimmy Enriquez,the point person for our Taiwan operations, who told me of the assignment. What WTU wanted me to do was to come up with a brochure about Jollibee that they would distribute during the expo. What made this extra challenging though was that I had less than a month to finish the brochure.

I had some prior experience doing this kind of work so that was not a problem. The short deadline however, presented complications and limitations.

For one, it would be impossible to have any color printing done since no printer then would accept a job order for color separations less than three weeks. The other concern was that it was only days before Holy Week when I got the assignment. That meant that the printing presses would be closed for a week,leaving me a window of only two weeks tops, to get the brochure out.

Fortunately, I had worked with a printing press that was willing to take on the job, but they told me that the brochure had to be in black and white. I informed WTU about it and since it was a no choice situation, he gave the go ahead.

I sat down with the layout editor of the press and drew up a schedule of when I should submit the dummy layouts, when I should get the blueprint and when they would get the final document out.

I couldn't take any new pictures so the week before Holy Week I already started looking for photos from existing file photos. As I found the pictures, I composed in my mind what the brochure would look like.

During the Holy Week I worked on the contents of the material, writing the copy and creating a layout. There were details and information that were missing so Jimmy and his then girlfriend, Meann San Juan, paid me a visit at home just to give me the data I needed.

The Holy Week break gave me enough time to complete the layouts such that by the Monday of the following week I was at the printer's submitting my dummy layout and all the needed photos.

I kept WTU posted on the status of the project. The only possible hitch we anticipated was that the brochures would be finished a day before he had to fly back to Taiwan to attend the expo.

Thankfully, the printer completed the job as promised. However, that meant I had to wait till about 6 PM at Culmat building for the delivery.

I received the glossy black and white brochures and then drove over to WTU's residence somewhere in Cubao to deliver the copies. I kept one for myself as a souvenir.

WTU greatly appreciated the effort and really wished we had had more time to come up with a color printed material. But he said, that it had come out better than he expected considering the short lead time.

He wrote a letter of appreciation to my boss commending me for what I had done, which really made me feel good!

THE DAY I REVERSED THE EVP'S DECISION

This is a favorite story of mine. For me it illustrates how Tans believed and trusted in their people's good judgment.

This happened sometime in December of 1986 when I was preparing for the first ever Managers' Convention of Jollibee,which was to be held in January,1987.

I got a call one afternoon and when I picked it up and said the customary greeting I recognized the familiar voice at the other end. It was S' Tony Tan. And he wanted to get my idea about something related to the convention.

We who were in the committee had agreed to give all participants a custom made jacket as a souvenir. S' Ato,who was head of the project, suggested that we have the Convention logo embazoned at the back of the jacket so that when the managers wore it they would be constantly reminded of our convention theme ("No. 1 Again in '87'.)

What S' Tony wanted was my opinion on where to put the logo. He said,"Ato told me that you plan to put the Convention logo at the back of the jacket. What do you think?"

"What do I think?" I couldn't believe my ears! Here was the President of the company consulting me about a simple matter! He wanted my opinion so I gave it to him.

I told him that when we had met about the matter, it was S' Ato who recommended the placement of the logo at the back. (I made it very clear that it was his brother's choice.)
But if I had my way, I told him, I'd much rather put a small version of the logo in front, at the left side. My reason for that was the jacket looked elegant and having a big logo printed at the back would "cheapen" the look. (But of course, I didn't tell him that.)

After I said my piece,he simply said,"I think so too."Meaning he agreed with my idea about the logo! Then he said thanks and hung up!

I was quite concerned after that because it might appear that I had disagreed with S' Ato's point of view. But at the same time I felt a sense of elation, simple because I had been consulted by the President and had given him my 2 cents!

When the jackets came out,the logo was printed the way I had suggested it..and it really looked great!

I never heard any negative reactions from S' Ato about my "reversal" of his decision, and that is what I admired about the owners and the company.

I would be consulted about many more things during my long stay at Jollibee, but I will always remember the day I reversed S' Ato's decision!

A CASE FOR CRASH TRAINING

I have always been against crash training, specially after having experienced its ill effects while I was still at KFC.

Shortening a training program to its bare essentials and expecting that trainees will be equipped with necessary skills to do the job is really expecting too much of the trainees...and usually ends up as the name suggests, in a "crash."

However, in 1987 I had to agree to launching a "crash training" of our BOTP (Basic Operations Training Program) not only for one, but two, batches of management trainees.

This happened because all of a sudden we had to open three Jollibee stores in two months and there were still no managers ready to run those new stores. Since our regular BOTP ran for one and a half months, we needed to crash the program down to two weeks, after which the trainees would be deployed to their store assignments.

In a crash training situation it is important that the trainers are top caliber instructors and it is also imperative that the trainees' progress is closely monitored. To meet these requirements we required our Training specialists (who were former store managers themselves)to personally handle the training of the management trainess who would go through the crash program.

With the shortened time also we had to do training differently.

We requested that the two best training stores at the time be given to us as venues for training. We converted part of the dining areas of these stores into classrooms where the trainees would undergo lectures on store procedures. After their lectures they would go to the stations and practice what they learned.

To make sure that the trainees themselves were prepared for fast paced learning we made sure to tell them they were going through a special program.

For almost a month, I had no one with me at the office because all my trainers were in the training stores. I visited them occasionally to find out how things were going.

It was physically taxing for my team then because they not only had to teach but also work during operations,coaching the trainees. The trainees too felt overwhelmed by the overload of information they were getting,but they felt challenged, so they gave their best.

Did we succeed after all?

In so far as filling up the new stores with managers, yes, we were able to do that. The "crash trainees" had enough experience to get them through the opening of their stores. But over the long haul, we felt that we failed.

Many of those who joined the crash training resigned within a year. There were survivors but they only did so because of personal tenacity.

We never ventured into crash training the BOTP after that.Things were planned better so that before a new store opened, its managers would have received ample training.