Jollibee’s Success in the Philippines

Jollibee is the Mcdonald’s of the Philippines. From a simple ice-cream parlor in 1975, it has explored the concept of hot meals and sandwiches in 1978 and since then revolutionized the concept of fast food in the Philippines. 1984 saw Jollibee hit the Top 500 Philippine Corporations. 1987 landed the fast food chain into the country’s Top 100 Corporations. It became a billion-peso corporation in 1989. Today, there are 600 branches of Jollibee in the Philippines and about 50 abroad. Analysis of Jollibee’s Success in the Philippines The Philippines is a small, third-world country in south-east Asia.

Like many asians, Filipino people eat their meals with rice and they prefer it home-cooked. However, due to the urbanization of the capital city in the late 70’s and the modernization required for economic development, Filipinos had to settle for less than the best: the turo-turo style. Way before the term “fastfood” reached the vocabulary of the Filipinos, people in the Philippines had eaten turo-turo style. Turo-turo is where ready-to-eat and ready-to-go entrees arrayed in steam-heated trays, are always ready to be eye-balled by hungry and harried customers.

If you wait more than 20 minutes to get your food, it’s not considered as a turo-turo restaurant. Jollibee’s claim to have revolutionized the concept of fast food in the Philippines is probably correct. The company claims that the secrets of its success are “superior menu line-up, creative marketing programs, and efficient manufacturing and logistics facilities. It (success) is made possible by well-trained teams that work in a culture of integrity and humility, fun and family-like.

” Success did not come easy as Jollibee is not exactly the first “fastfood” in the Philippines.

Wendy’s from the USA came first and that is where Jollibee “ conceived” the idea of sandwhiches and hotmeals served in less than twenty minutes to cater to the urbanized city of Manila. Competition has been tough for the first few years however Jollibee made the right decision to “Philippinize” its concept starting with market research. It was hypothesized that the Filipinos love not actually the home-cooked meals served by their wives but the smell and aroma of the meals served at home. Capitalizing on this theory, Jollibee launched the slogan, “langhap-sarap” which in English translates to “smells delicious”.

Also, knowing the heart and soul of every Filipino is the family, Jollibee made itself cater not to individual professionals in the modern city but to the family as a whole. Jollibee became a red, giant bee mascot children adore. Jollibee easily became a household name in the market. The most notable commodity Jollibee offered is the chicken joy. When you step inside a single branch of Jollibee, you can actually smell the crispy, golden chicken being deep fried to juicy tenderness. In Jollibee, hamburger patty is being eaten with gravy and served with rice and they call it the burger steak.

Same as any product, this one “smells delicious”. Another notable thing about Jollibee is how spaghetti is flavored. The spaghetti of Jollibee is sweet as Filipinos put sugar in their spaghetti and not much tomatoes. This menu line-up thanks to research on the wants of Filipinos, target customer and the use of mega-superstars as endorsers put Jollibee at the top of the fastfood industry in the Philippines. Jollibee in the USA The Jollibee branch located in San Francisco area is supposed to cater to the voluminous home-sick Filipinos working in the city.

This Jollibee branch looks like a normal Jollibee branch in the Philippines. The most notable difference is the price of the food. Jollibee in the USA is more expensive than McDonald’s. They also accept credit cards which is a facility not found in any of the Jollibee branches in the Philippines. The commodities sold is also very different. Though they market it as the same “smells delicious” chicken joy from the Philippines, the chicken hardly smells nor looks delicious. It doesn’t have the same crispy juiciness as that of the local branches and it tastes mostly of salt.

The burger steak is still served with rice though the hamburger patty is bigger and spaghetti is not as sweet as it should be, Filipino-style. The fusion of two states could be blamed for the high pricing as Jollibee might be adjusting to the cost of putting up a branch in San Francisco where raw materials are considerably more expensive. However, the objective of catering to home-sicked Filipinos is not met, in my opinion, as this Jollibee, though the same as in the home country in name, is not the same in every other aspect.