Jollibee Franchise In The Philippines
In 1975, a Filipino businessman from a Chinese descent named Tony Tan Caktiong opened a two-branch Magnolia ice cream parlor in Cubao, Quezon City. Later on it added burgers and sandwiches in its menu. From its humble beginning, it has expanded tremendously over the past three decades to become the most successful and popular Philippine fast-food giant known as Jollibee. With its appealing yellow-and-red Jollibee mascot in a blazer, shirt and chef's hat, colorful eating place and (in some branches) child-friendly playrooms, Jollibee mainly targets the young crowd, but is has a mass appeal to the entire Filipino family. Its menu includes popular American-influenced foods like burgers, spaghetti and fried chicken, but what endeared it to the Filipinos is the taste that is adjusted to the Filipino palate. Many foreigners would find it odd or even disgusting to find out that Filipinos love spaghetti with sweet sauce, chopped hotdogs and topped with cheddar cheese, but that is exactly Jollibee's strong point: the fact that its formula catered to the distinctive Filipino tastes.
Today, colorful Jollibee stores are found in every major city or town throughout the country and it has successfully expanded abroad. In 1986, it opened its first overseas restaurant in Taiwan. Another outlet in Brunei was opened a year after. In 1998, Jollibee felt confident enough to open its first U.S. store in California, which has a large Filipino population. The restaurant received a huge acceptance among Filipino communities in the area who craves for the distinctive taste of the Filipino-style dishes. With over 1200 stores in the Philippines and 161 abroad, Jollibee is undeniably the country's leading fast-food chain. In fact, the Philippines is probably one of the very few countries where McDonalds failed to dominate the fast-food chain market. Because of Jollibee's phenomenal success, Tony Tan Caktiong garnered various awards, one of which was the "World Entrepreneur of the Year" given by Ernst & Young. Jollibee serves variations of typical American-inspired cuisine which it gives unique Jollibee personality by giving it a distinctive name, like hamburger, which it calls Yumburger, fried chicken, called the ChickenJoy, sweet-style spaghetti, called Jolli Spaghetti and French fries, branded as Crispy Fries. This branding technique gives the products a strong recall among its patrons which are mostly children, teenagers and doting parents ever following their children's whims. Jollibee also serve traditional Filipino favorites like pancit palabok, pancit molo, macaroni soup, As a marketing strategy, Jollibee's campaign promoted Filipino values like respect for elders, patriotism and loyalty to the family. "Jollibee had this big marketing campaign that appealed to Filipino sentiment," Gene Gonzalez, a restaurateur and food consultant, said. Instead of running ads in English, as McDonald's did, Jollibee ran advertisments in Tagalog, the Filipino language. Its popular television commercials and product advertisements cements Jollibee's claim to be the Filipino family's choice of restaurant, with its widely popular family-inspired commercials featuring actor Aga Mulach and his family and singer and former teenstar Donna Cruz and her kids. Incorporating hip terms to describe the products like crispylicious, juicylicious, gravylicious, langhap-sarap, etc. which tickles the viewers' imagination of a deliciously prepared and best-tasting food assured lingering recall. Jollibee Foods Corporation continues its growth and expansion by acquiring several promising ventures such as the Greenwich Pizza Corp, a pizza-pasta fast food restaurant chain, Chowking, an oriental-inspired quick service restaurant chain, Red Ribbon Bakeshop, a popular bakeshop and fast-food chain and Delifrance, a French-type café-bakery chain. Indeed, Jollibee has come a long, long way from its modest start as an ice-cream station to being the number one fast-food restaurants conglomerate in the Philippines beating even the most popular foreign competitors. |